So it's already my second week working at Accenture and so far working here hasn't been all that bad, considering the field of work I'm in, Systems Integration and Technology, is completely uncharted territory for the true blue science geek that is yours truly. But let me start from the very first day, which is of course was the most exciting day of all... after all what's more nerve wrecking than my first day at work in a super huge multinational and extremely corporate company such as Accenture when all this time the toughest I've had to deal with so far is bratty primary school kids? Personally, I'd rather take the bratty kids over a stuffy corporate environment where I'd have to deal with difficult clients.... which eventually I will have to do, but thankfully has not happened yet.
Anyhow, the first day last Monday was just an orientation for me together with about 17 other newbies (that's about 3 times more people than the number of people at Mad Science. Yikes! And that's just in addition to the 750 over other Accenture employees in Malaysia alone...). That first day is the closest I've had to endure of stuffy corporate environment so far coz' everyone was in a business suit or office wear. I was the most 'casual' as I was wearing a long-sleeved cardigan over a matching spaghetti strap top with slacks, totally unaware that I was supposed to be dressed more formally as I failed to check my email until after that day. Fortunately, no one chided me for my dressing anyway. There was one other newbie girl with a Japanese-like dorky kind of hairdo (super thick bangs cut perfectly straight across her forehead, with the rest of her straight shoulder-length hair so stiff, it could've been a wig!) and wearing a black blazer with shoulder pads that made her look like a jock.... she looked pretty scary! And it didn't help that it turns out she was my junior from high school and she recognized me, even though I had no idea who she was. Fortunately, everyone else didn't pull off the super intimidating I-mean-business-so-don't-mess-with-me look quite as well as she did.
Anyhow, the bunch of us spent the whole day sitting in a big fancy meeting room, listening to the facilitator explain to us all the important things we need to know, like making time reports, using technical services, our benefits, what are our respective projects, etc, etc... In between, we were taken out to have a nice lunch at Madame Kwan's, a very expensive restaurant at KLCC selling local and western cuisine. Seeing how the company was treating all the newbies to lunch, I helped myself to a rather pricey meal of lamb chops and vanilla milkshake. Then I spent the rest of my lunch wondering if the company would keep an eye on those 'kiasu' people who ordered the more expensive meals. Haha, first day jitters! We also had a guy named Victor sitting at my table together with half of the newbies. Victor said he has been working at Accenture for over 10 years, during which he has travelled to a number of other countries for business. He also told us, very interestingly, that he was on leave that day and was on leave for a whole six months! This is because his family complained that he was spending too much time at work and not enough time at home, so the company, recognizing his contribution to Accenture, allowed him to take a break of 6 months! Wow, that's pretty cool. I don't think many companies would allow that! And the travelling to other countries part sounds nice too (yeah yeah, I know it's not really all that fun having to pack and run around to airports and there would be little time to actually sightsee with work, but still... I'm always up for a little adventure even if it IS mixed with some stuffy corporate meetings). Anyway, we were supposed to try and find out more about life at Accenture from Victor, but the newbies at my table were unfortunately mostly the silent type, save for one other guy and myself who kept bombarding Victor with whatever questions we could think of.
After lunch, we trooped back to the big meeting room where we continued with our long and boring orientation, which got even more boring towards the end when they subjected us to an hour of powerpoint presentations about what to do in case of technical or IT problems related to our laptops (yes, we got laptops!). Every now and then, that robotic sweet lady's voice would ask us "Do you understand this part of the presentation, at which all of us would groan "Yes..." in unison. This was after lunch at around 5 to 6pm, mind you. Then at the end of the day, all of us went of to collect our laptops, which was pretty exciting for me coz' it didn't even occur to me that we would be getting laptops! Unluckily for me though, I ended up with a old Dell Latitude 610, and from what I've heard since then, Dell is sucky compared to the newer models like HP. Plus the bag it came in made carrying it around a huge and heavy hassle, so I decided to ditch the bag and use my Compaq laptop bag at home, which is much sleeker and not so bulky. So now I carry around a Dell laptop in a Compaq bag. Just a couple of days ago, the 'R' button on my laptop came completely off, so I reported it to the IT department, and hopefully it'll be a good enough reason for me to change my laptop with a nicer and newer model!
Anyway, after Orientation Day, I was straight away thrown to my first project, in which the client is TM. I was rather blur on Tuesday though, coz' I was told the day before to contact my project manager but it was late so I decided to do it the next day, which I did only when I went all the way back to the KLCC office and I was wondering if there was anything else there to do before I flew off to my project site. Apparently there wasn't coz' there was no one there who was remotely interested in the newbies anymore (and I didn't even see most of the other newbies save for a few, including scary Japanese hairdo girl), so I handed in a few more forms before calling up my project manager who told me to get to the Cygal building, which is next to the TM building along the Federal Highway. And that is where I have ever since. And what exactly is my project all about? Well, here's the 411:
The project: Creating a customer care application for TM known as iCare that will integrate with their own system and enable them to further enhance their customer services.
Current stage: They have already created and launched three earlier versions of iCare and are currently working on their fourth release of the application which will have additional features to serve specific TM users. Right now, we are done building the application but it needs to be tested thoroughly for bugs. Which is where I come in!
My job: Create a list of test conditions on which to test the application against, and report and problems discovered to the fix team, who will then proceed to eliminate the problem. For those non-technical people who have no idea what a test condition is, don't worry, neither did I when I first went in. An example would be, say, the test condition is: Search for a customer by his login name. The expected result for that would be: Customer profile is located and his details are listed. So if I perform the search by login name and it did not appear as expected, then something is wrong with that function and I need to report it. As such, anything that has to do with what system's functions are can be made into a test condition. If the system is tested against a condition and the expected results are achieved, then hooray! If the results are not as expected, such as an error message pops up, then it's work for the Fix team. Comprende?
So basically, my job is not difficult in the sense that I don't actually need much IT skills or need to learn heaps of programming stuff before I can do anything (which was what I was worried about)... all I need to do is know what the system is supposed to do, and use a bit of common sense to create test conditions and then test the system against them. The difficult part is that the number of test conditions created are, well, a LOT. And to test against all of them is taking a LONG time. It's a tedious process, in which I do little else but sit and stare at my laptop all day, testing the functions until I come across a problem. In which case, I have a chance to get up and walk 8 steps away to my senior team member to ask her if this is actually a bug or not. And if it IS, then I have to create something called a SIR, which is a report of the problem which will be sent to the fix team. And another difficult part was, and still is, having to remember a gazillion and one new terms and jargon that are used at TM. There are a ton of TM applications with names like CASS, MCMB, eQuest, WebSTARS, TMBilly, WebBRAINS, and so on and so forth, and I have to remember what all the systems are for. And then there are another gazillion abbreviations used related to the project, like CRM (Customer Relationship Management), CSR (Customer Service Representative), ToS (Termination of Service), SR (Service Request), SIT (Systems Integration Test), UAT (User Acceptance Test), CRMKB (Customer Relationship Management Knowledge Base) , etc, etc..... By the end of the first day, my head was full of a jumble of letters! You can imagine how blur I am when my project team members start rambling on about the project and talking in abbreviations, while I'm blinking and trying to remember what they all stand for. The funniest thing is that, while I know my official position is as Analyst under Systems Integration and Technology (SI&T), I had no idea what is meant by workforce or operating group, let alone which one I am under coz' no one told me at Orientation. So when someone emailed me at work asking for my OG/WF (even that I didn't know it was, until later I found out), I emailed back asking what she meant. And her reply was something along the lines of "OG means either CHT, GHT, etc... and WF means SHT, GHF, etc... (I'm just making up those coz' I can't remember exactly what she wrote). Suffice to say, I was even more blur than before.
Sigh, I suppose over time I will gradually understand and speak the strange alien language that they use at Accenture. In addition to that, I also have to deal with less technical issues like how my eyes get blurry rather quickly now that I work all day in front of a comp, and also my butt hurts from sitting on the chair too long. One of my friends suggested shifting from one butt cheek to another at intervals. I never thought any suggestion related to butt cheeks would actually be a good idea.... The good thing now though is that I get internet access all day, unlike my previous job, and I get to enjoy free internet music...which is actually really cool coz' I get to listen to all sorts of weird stations you'd never hear on local radio, like Christian music stations, Rock & Alternative, New Age, and even stations playing recorded sermons. Tried listening to the sermon station once, but it kind of distracted me from my work so I decided it wasn't a good idea. Also, we get to enjoy free milo, coffee, tea and Maggi at office if we're feeling peckish. Unfortunately, this is one area where my office is still lacking, even compared to Mad Science. Over there, I could have all that and even enjoy a variety of sweet, biscuits and other goodies! Of course, most of this stuff is for party pinatas, so technically I wasn't supposed to eat them.... bygones!
As for now, it's time for bed and back to work tomorrow. TTFN!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
The death of a pet
I started my new job at Accenture yesterday. As much as it has been an interesting past couple of days working in a completely new environment, unfortunately my story of my experiences so far are about to be put on hold until my next post, due to a recent sad event. One of my gerbils died on Saturday. The poor blighter was one of my brown male gerbils, named Peanut. He was the biggest and fattest among my gerbil family of eight (would have been ten, but I gave two away to an ex-colleague).
Now it would not have been so bad if the little fella had died of old age, or got sick, or just died of high cholesterol coz' it was too fat. I would have been sad, but I would've gotten over it quickly. But instead, not only am I sad, but I am also infuriated, pissed and downright ready to explode everytime I think about what happened to my gerbil. Because Peanut was a perfectly happy and healthy gerbil, and it would've lived up to a ripe old age.... if NOT for someone in my house who decided he was so smart and didn't listen to what I asked him to do so many time. This said person in my house completely disregarded what I told him NOT to do, even though it was related to MY pets, which HE never lifted a finger to feed, or give water to, or change their bedding or take care of them in any way. This said person in my house caused the death of my poor innocent gerbil for his own sadistic amusement!!!!
How did it happen? Well, let's see... this person in my house, or PIMH for short, because I do not want to refer to him in any other manner out of my little spattering of respect I think I have left of him simply because I am 'supposed' to respect him, had decided from the time I had begun taking care of my gerbils that it would be amusing to let the family dog a.k.a. Sassy the Shih Tzu 'play' with the gerbils by letting her loose on a few of the gerbils at once in a confined area. By confined, it usually meant on the top of a bed or a couch. The PIMH seemed to think it would good to do so because it would get the dog of the house all excited and give her some exercise chasing the gerbils around. But I myself having observed the dog when it chased the gerbils, saw that the dog would sometimes get too rough and try to grab them with a mouth (equivalent to a fatal bite for a little gerbil) or immobilize them by pouncing on them with her paw. As such, I informed this PIMH not to let the dog play with the gerbils, not once, but on several occasions, reminding him that the dog could hurt the gerbils, even though she may only be 'playing' with them and not want to hurt them intentionally. However, this said PIMH thought our dog to be so preciously innocent that it wouldn't hurt the gerbils at all, even though I once saw the dog catch one of my gerbils in her mouth and grip it tightly enough that it took both me and my mum to extricate it gently. Fortunately, my dog was smart enough that time to not bite hard enough to injure the gerbil, so it came out unscathed. But it still demonstrated that the dog would not hesitate to take a bite at them if she had the chance. But this said PIMH insisted that all she was doing was 'nudging the gerbils with her mouth'. Right.
So last weekend, I went to Malacca to visit my boyfriend for a few days from Friday to Sunday. And I had a great holiday, blissfully unaware of any unfortunate events happening back home... until I arrived home on Sunday. Then, after a little nap to recuperate from the journey home, I was informed my this said PIMH that something not-so-good had happened over the weekend. Now if he had just told me straight out what had happened instead of beating around the bush with a sheepish look on his face, maybe I wouldn't be so mad in hindsight. But that wasn't the case, coz' after a few more 'hints' about whatever it was that happened, it dawned on me. I asked him if anything had happened to my gerbils. Again, the sheepish look on the PIMH's face. And he asked me "Would you be mad of something bad had happened to your gerbils?". Confirming what I suspected, I answered a definite YES, and after some more questioning of this PIMH who annoyingly continued to beat around the bush, I discovered that he had let the dog 'play' with the gerbils and 'apparently' during this 'playtime', one of my gerbils 'died of a heart attack'.
At first, I didn't believe him. I couldn't believe him. I thought he was joking. But he said he wasn't. And when I went to count my gerbil family, I found 7 instead of 8. Peanut was missing. And when I asked him which gerbil was dead, he said the one that was brown in colour from the cage of males.
After I realised what had happened, I couldn't help myself. I cried for the next half an hour, completely speechless. I sat in front of my gerbil cages, cleaning out the stuff that they had chewed up over the weekend and replaced it with new things for them to chew. Then I went to eat my lunch, still crying silently. And all this time, this said PIMH didn't say anything. He didn't apologize, nothing. He just sat in front of his computer, staring at the screen as if nothing had happened. For more than half an hour. Then after a while, I got so mad, I asked him if he even felt sorry at all. Then, and ONLY then, did he say "Yeah, I'm sorry". And that was it. Just a sorry. Nothing along the lines of "I did something wrong and stupid and I shouldn't have" or anything else to indicate he regretted was he did. The only time he apologized was when I asked him to!!!!
And if that wasn't enough to make me cry, curse, swear under my breath and throw occasional angry fits at the idiocy of this PIMH allowing the dog to chase the gerbil around when I had told him repeatedly NOT to do so, today after even more prodding, I found out even MORE details of that horrible day that makes my blood boil even more. For one thing, the dog and the gerbils, were't just on the bed, they were on my floor of my bedroom. I've seen them on the bed before, and on that small space, the dog isn't usually chasing the gerbils so frantically as there is little space to chase them. But on the FLOOR, there is PLENTY of space for her to chase them, and there is where I have seem her pounce on them and try to bite them. I would have NEVER left her alone with them on the floor for a SECOND coz' I know she would do something to them. But this PIMH of amazingly low IQ told me that he NOT only left them alone, he left the dog with Peanut in the room alone for TEN minutes!!!!!! TEN MINUTES!!!!!! For crying out loud! The dog could have done anything to the gerbil in just 30 second, let alone ten minutes!!!!And what was he doing in that ten minutes? Well, he said he had been letting her play with a few of them at once, and he left the dog in the room with Peanut while he said he was putting the other gerbils back in their cage. WHAT??!!! It doesn't take ten minutes to walk from my room to the cage! What on earth was he thinking by leaving them alone for TEN minutes!!!!!!
After that, I realised not only was this said PIMH was sooooo stoooopid to leave the dog alone with my gerbil, so but he was also bullshitting me with pathetic excuses to try and cover up what had happened. For one thing, he told me that the gerbil 'died of a heart attack'. For goodness sake, there's not way it would've died of a heart attack! The dog wouldn't either bitten it or jumped on it so hard that it cracked it's skull or broke it's body. Either way, the dog did something to that killed it. And his lame excuse is that it died of a heart attack! And secondly, he told me that 'the dog was very quiet and sad' after that. Yeah right. The dog wouldn't have known it did anything wrong any better than a young lion cub who had killed its first rabbit. And I'm sure that this PIMH didn't even do anything to punish the dog or let it know what it did was wrong coz' he pampers the dumb pooch so much (though I also might add that it's my MUM who feeds it, bathes it, blowdries it, grooms it and does practically everything else for the dog while all this PIMH does is cuddle it call it his "LOVE"). And these excuses just infuriate me to bits! It's already bad enough he let this happen when I kept telling him not to do it! And he had the nerve to try and make it sound nicer than it was??? And the even MORE infuriating part is that when I scold him for it, he gets annoyed and just tells me that it's over now and I shouldn't be bringing it up so much. WHAT??? I raised this little gerbil everyday from the day it was born to become a perfectly healthy little fella... I bought the gerbils nice cages to stay in with wheels for them to exercise on and little funnels for them to play in.... I spend hours separating their poop and chewed up stuff from their bedding so I could make their cage cleaner (and not have to buy so much bedding)... I sat down next to their cages almost every night to feed them their favourite kuaci... I know each and every one of my gerbils by name.... and this insensitive PIMH who never lifted a finger to take care of them, doesn't even know their names, goes and does exactly what I told him NOT to do, gets one of my gerbils killed because of it, and when I scold him for it, he dares to get annoyed with me???? CAN YOU BLAME ME BEING SO ANGRY I WANT TO SCREAM MY HEAD OFF??? AAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Now everytime I clean out the cages or feed them kuaci, I keep thinking how there should be one more fat healthy brown gerbil running around in one of the cages, together with it's brothers and father. And I keep thinking how it's broken little body is rotting in some rubbish dump somewhere coz' that's where that PIMH unceremoniously dumped it before I even had the chance to see it. And he is still happily sitting in front of his computer everyday like life is just dandy. And he expects me to get over it. Right. I know most males are not as sensitive to other people's plights as females are.... but this PIMH... he has less sensitivity than that of a rotten prune. He's not truly sorry... and he never admitted he was wrong. To him, it's just one silly rat that died, and he probably thinks I'm overreacting. Which may be right, maybe I am overreacting. But it's the principle of the thing! Even though Peanut was just a little gerbil who cared more about getting it's daily kuaci than loving me back, I still loved it and it was MY pet. And if he doesn't have the decency to listen to me when I tell him NOT to endanger them, nor even apologize or admit he was wrong when something like this happens.... then I'm sure it will be a long time before I can ever get over this unfortunate incident. For now, all I can do is hope time will help me regain my severely depleted respect for this PIMH while also helping me to get through the tragic and unnecessary loss of an innocent pet.
Now it would not have been so bad if the little fella had died of old age, or got sick, or just died of high cholesterol coz' it was too fat. I would have been sad, but I would've gotten over it quickly. But instead, not only am I sad, but I am also infuriated, pissed and downright ready to explode everytime I think about what happened to my gerbil. Because Peanut was a perfectly happy and healthy gerbil, and it would've lived up to a ripe old age.... if NOT for someone in my house who decided he was so smart and didn't listen to what I asked him to do so many time. This said person in my house completely disregarded what I told him NOT to do, even though it was related to MY pets, which HE never lifted a finger to feed, or give water to, or change their bedding or take care of them in any way. This said person in my house caused the death of my poor innocent gerbil for his own sadistic amusement!!!!
How did it happen? Well, let's see... this person in my house, or PIMH for short, because I do not want to refer to him in any other manner out of my little spattering of respect I think I have left of him simply because I am 'supposed' to respect him, had decided from the time I had begun taking care of my gerbils that it would be amusing to let the family dog a.k.a. Sassy the Shih Tzu 'play' with the gerbils by letting her loose on a few of the gerbils at once in a confined area. By confined, it usually meant on the top of a bed or a couch. The PIMH seemed to think it would good to do so because it would get the dog of the house all excited and give her some exercise chasing the gerbils around. But I myself having observed the dog when it chased the gerbils, saw that the dog would sometimes get too rough and try to grab them with a mouth (equivalent to a fatal bite for a little gerbil) or immobilize them by pouncing on them with her paw. As such, I informed this PIMH not to let the dog play with the gerbils, not once, but on several occasions, reminding him that the dog could hurt the gerbils, even though she may only be 'playing' with them and not want to hurt them intentionally. However, this said PIMH thought our dog to be so preciously innocent that it wouldn't hurt the gerbils at all, even though I once saw the dog catch one of my gerbils in her mouth and grip it tightly enough that it took both me and my mum to extricate it gently. Fortunately, my dog was smart enough that time to not bite hard enough to injure the gerbil, so it came out unscathed. But it still demonstrated that the dog would not hesitate to take a bite at them if she had the chance. But this said PIMH insisted that all she was doing was 'nudging the gerbils with her mouth'. Right.
So last weekend, I went to Malacca to visit my boyfriend for a few days from Friday to Sunday. And I had a great holiday, blissfully unaware of any unfortunate events happening back home... until I arrived home on Sunday. Then, after a little nap to recuperate from the journey home, I was informed my this said PIMH that something not-so-good had happened over the weekend. Now if he had just told me straight out what had happened instead of beating around the bush with a sheepish look on his face, maybe I wouldn't be so mad in hindsight. But that wasn't the case, coz' after a few more 'hints' about whatever it was that happened, it dawned on me. I asked him if anything had happened to my gerbils. Again, the sheepish look on the PIMH's face. And he asked me "Would you be mad of something bad had happened to your gerbils?". Confirming what I suspected, I answered a definite YES, and after some more questioning of this PIMH who annoyingly continued to beat around the bush, I discovered that he had let the dog 'play' with the gerbils and 'apparently' during this 'playtime', one of my gerbils 'died of a heart attack'.
At first, I didn't believe him. I couldn't believe him. I thought he was joking. But he said he wasn't. And when I went to count my gerbil family, I found 7 instead of 8. Peanut was missing. And when I asked him which gerbil was dead, he said the one that was brown in colour from the cage of males.
After I realised what had happened, I couldn't help myself. I cried for the next half an hour, completely speechless. I sat in front of my gerbil cages, cleaning out the stuff that they had chewed up over the weekend and replaced it with new things for them to chew. Then I went to eat my lunch, still crying silently. And all this time, this said PIMH didn't say anything. He didn't apologize, nothing. He just sat in front of his computer, staring at the screen as if nothing had happened. For more than half an hour. Then after a while, I got so mad, I asked him if he even felt sorry at all. Then, and ONLY then, did he say "Yeah, I'm sorry". And that was it. Just a sorry. Nothing along the lines of "I did something wrong and stupid and I shouldn't have" or anything else to indicate he regretted was he did. The only time he apologized was when I asked him to!!!!
And if that wasn't enough to make me cry, curse, swear under my breath and throw occasional angry fits at the idiocy of this PIMH allowing the dog to chase the gerbil around when I had told him repeatedly NOT to do so, today after even more prodding, I found out even MORE details of that horrible day that makes my blood boil even more. For one thing, the dog and the gerbils, were't just on the bed, they were on my floor of my bedroom. I've seen them on the bed before, and on that small space, the dog isn't usually chasing the gerbils so frantically as there is little space to chase them. But on the FLOOR, there is PLENTY of space for her to chase them, and there is where I have seem her pounce on them and try to bite them. I would have NEVER left her alone with them on the floor for a SECOND coz' I know she would do something to them. But this PIMH of amazingly low IQ told me that he NOT only left them alone, he left the dog with Peanut in the room alone for TEN minutes!!!!!! TEN MINUTES!!!!!! For crying out loud! The dog could have done anything to the gerbil in just 30 second, let alone ten minutes!!!!And what was he doing in that ten minutes? Well, he said he had been letting her play with a few of them at once, and he left the dog in the room with Peanut while he said he was putting the other gerbils back in their cage. WHAT??!!! It doesn't take ten minutes to walk from my room to the cage! What on earth was he thinking by leaving them alone for TEN minutes!!!!!!
After that, I realised not only was this said PIMH was sooooo stoooopid to leave the dog alone with my gerbil, so but he was also bullshitting me with pathetic excuses to try and cover up what had happened. For one thing, he told me that the gerbil 'died of a heart attack'. For goodness sake, there's not way it would've died of a heart attack! The dog wouldn't either bitten it or jumped on it so hard that it cracked it's skull or broke it's body. Either way, the dog did something to that killed it. And his lame excuse is that it died of a heart attack! And secondly, he told me that 'the dog was very quiet and sad' after that. Yeah right. The dog wouldn't have known it did anything wrong any better than a young lion cub who had killed its first rabbit. And I'm sure that this PIMH didn't even do anything to punish the dog or let it know what it did was wrong coz' he pampers the dumb pooch so much (though I also might add that it's my MUM who feeds it, bathes it, blowdries it, grooms it and does practically everything else for the dog while all this PIMH does is cuddle it call it his "LOVE"). And these excuses just infuriate me to bits! It's already bad enough he let this happen when I kept telling him not to do it! And he had the nerve to try and make it sound nicer than it was??? And the even MORE infuriating part is that when I scold him for it, he gets annoyed and just tells me that it's over now and I shouldn't be bringing it up so much. WHAT??? I raised this little gerbil everyday from the day it was born to become a perfectly healthy little fella... I bought the gerbils nice cages to stay in with wheels for them to exercise on and little funnels for them to play in.... I spend hours separating their poop and chewed up stuff from their bedding so I could make their cage cleaner (and not have to buy so much bedding)... I sat down next to their cages almost every night to feed them their favourite kuaci... I know each and every one of my gerbils by name.... and this insensitive PIMH who never lifted a finger to take care of them, doesn't even know their names, goes and does exactly what I told him NOT to do, gets one of my gerbils killed because of it, and when I scold him for it, he dares to get annoyed with me???? CAN YOU BLAME ME BEING SO ANGRY I WANT TO SCREAM MY HEAD OFF??? AAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Now everytime I clean out the cages or feed them kuaci, I keep thinking how there should be one more fat healthy brown gerbil running around in one of the cages, together with it's brothers and father. And I keep thinking how it's broken little body is rotting in some rubbish dump somewhere coz' that's where that PIMH unceremoniously dumped it before I even had the chance to see it. And he is still happily sitting in front of his computer everyday like life is just dandy. And he expects me to get over it. Right. I know most males are not as sensitive to other people's plights as females are.... but this PIMH... he has less sensitivity than that of a rotten prune. He's not truly sorry... and he never admitted he was wrong. To him, it's just one silly rat that died, and he probably thinks I'm overreacting. Which may be right, maybe I am overreacting. But it's the principle of the thing! Even though Peanut was just a little gerbil who cared more about getting it's daily kuaci than loving me back, I still loved it and it was MY pet. And if he doesn't have the decency to listen to me when I tell him NOT to endanger them, nor even apologize or admit he was wrong when something like this happens.... then I'm sure it will be a long time before I can ever get over this unfortunate incident. For now, all I can do is hope time will help me regain my severely depleted respect for this PIMH while also helping me to get through the tragic and unnecessary loss of an innocent pet.
Friday, August 31, 2007
A Pottery holiday... :Þ
I've finally finished reading all of the Harry Potter books! Woohoo!I actually managed to finish Book 6 (Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince) within two days (Monday and Tuesday) and the whole of Book 7 (Harry Potter & The Death Hallows) in just one day! Well, I had read a few chapters of Book 7 beforehand when I borrowed in from a friend during a trip to Genting, so I skipped those that I had read when reading it yesterday. Took me about 14 hours to finish the whole thing, including breaks for food, a swim, shower and other miscellaneous things. And if you're wondering how come I'm so free that I spend the whole of 3 days reading Harry Potter til my eyes grew bleary and my butt was aching from sitting on the chair too long (reading from my laptop, see), well, it's coz' I'm off the whole of this week to use up my remaining leave days before I start my new job at Accenture, which is next Monday. I have a feeling I'm just going to totally freak out when that day comes coz' it's a completely different world from where I was working before, and not being a big fan of anything corporate-like (which is all what Accenture is about), me thinks I will most likely suffer from some form of culture shock. I just hope I don't meet any cruel, crazy people who will backstab anyone in their way to climb to the top, or have a nutty boss who will make me work right up to midnight everyday. Eep.
Well, anyway, worrying about things that may not happen never helped anyone, so back to the subject of Harry Potter. I thought all the books were great (except for Book 5, which was also good but full of a lot of unnecessary stuff that made it a bit draggy) and Book 7 did not fail to deliver a fantastic finale to the series. Unfortunately, quite a number of good guys die in the book, one of which I liked quite a lot so there was actually a little tear in my eye when he was killed, more out of shock than anything coz' he was one of the funniest characters and I didn't expect him to be killed off at all. But ah well, it IS just a fictional story after all. But anyway, I really have to take my hat off to that Rowling lady, coz' I have no idea how on earth the woman couldn't thought up the whole complicated story in a her head and end it all in such a bang.
I mean, there are so many twists and turns and mysteries in the book, which makes it so fascinating that I couldn't hardly stop reading juz' coz' I needed to know what happened next. And she manages to wrap it all up pretty well in the end. Plus there's a really cool battle scene at the end which I think would just be totally cool to watch in the movie, though I think the movie would not be able to fit in most of the book's details, so story-wise, the movie would probably go splat. But I hope whoever directs the seventh movie does that final battle scene justice, coz' I think practically every magical creature in all the books was involved in that fight scene, and it could be a fight scene of epic proportions that would probably make Lord of the Rings look like a line dance party.
Anyhow, just for fun, I was looking up some Harry Potter stuff on the net and took one of those funny surveys to find out which one of the four Hogwarts houses I would go to, if I were a Hogwarts students. Apparently my score was highest for Hugglepuff, at 73 points, and it said "Hufflepuff students are friendly, fair-minded, modest, and hard-working. A well-known member was Cedric Digory, who represented Hogwarts in the most recent Triwizard Tournament". Hmm... sounds like me I guess. I also might have done equally well in Gryffindor (71 points), which has students which are "brave, daring and chivalrous", or Ravenclaw (70 points), with students who are "clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable". Hmm.... I think Ravenclaw actually suits me better than Gryffindor. Not unexpectedly, I'm least likely to get into Slytherin (45 points) as I'm not so "cunning and hungry for power". Yup, I'm a good girl, I am!
Haha, too bad my holiday is going to end soon. *Sigh!*
Well, anyway, worrying about things that may not happen never helped anyone, so back to the subject of Harry Potter. I thought all the books were great (except for Book 5, which was also good but full of a lot of unnecessary stuff that made it a bit draggy) and Book 7 did not fail to deliver a fantastic finale to the series. Unfortunately, quite a number of good guys die in the book, one of which I liked quite a lot so there was actually a little tear in my eye when he was killed, more out of shock than anything coz' he was one of the funniest characters and I didn't expect him to be killed off at all. But ah well, it IS just a fictional story after all. But anyway, I really have to take my hat off to that Rowling lady, coz' I have no idea how on earth the woman couldn't thought up the whole complicated story in a her head and end it all in such a bang.
I mean, there are so many twists and turns and mysteries in the book, which makes it so fascinating that I couldn't hardly stop reading juz' coz' I needed to know what happened next. And she manages to wrap it all up pretty well in the end. Plus there's a really cool battle scene at the end which I think would just be totally cool to watch in the movie, though I think the movie would not be able to fit in most of the book's details, so story-wise, the movie would probably go splat. But I hope whoever directs the seventh movie does that final battle scene justice, coz' I think practically every magical creature in all the books was involved in that fight scene, and it could be a fight scene of epic proportions that would probably make Lord of the Rings look like a line dance party.
Anyhow, just for fun, I was looking up some Harry Potter stuff on the net and took one of those funny surveys to find out which one of the four Hogwarts houses I would go to, if I were a Hogwarts students. Apparently my score was highest for Hugglepuff, at 73 points, and it said "Hufflepuff students are friendly, fair-minded, modest, and hard-working. A well-known member was Cedric Digory, who represented Hogwarts in the most recent Triwizard Tournament". Hmm... sounds like me I guess. I also might have done equally well in Gryffindor (71 points), which has students which are "brave, daring and chivalrous", or Ravenclaw (70 points), with students who are "clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable". Hmm.... I think Ravenclaw actually suits me better than Gryffindor. Not unexpectedly, I'm least likely to get into Slytherin (45 points) as I'm not so "cunning and hungry for power". Yup, I'm a good girl, I am!
Haha, too bad my holiday is going to end soon. *Sigh!*
Monday, August 13, 2007
Being a witch for a day
Well, after my little stress releasing session in my last blog entry, I guess it would be good to write about some more cheery events. Before my last post, I was pretty much MIA (Missing In Action) from blog posting for a few weeks. Mainly because, just like pretty much half of the rest of the world, I was getting caught up in a bit of Harry Potter fever with the launching of the last book on the 21st of July. About one week before the book launch, my colleague lent me a cd with soft copies of the first six books, so I've been happily reading all of them since then (I finished the first book in two days!) and neglecting my blog because of them. Right now I'm on Book Five, so I'm on leave possibly until Wednesday (initially coz' I wanted to use up all my leave before moving to my new company, but now also because my car is in the workshop), so I will most likely lap up Book Five in no time.
But anyway, in conjunction with the launch of the final book, MPH had organized a Harry Potter
pre-launch party, in which they invited us Mad Scientists to go there are perform a magic-related show. They had also wanted us to perform some demonstrations on the day of the laucnh itself, but due to the whole hoohah with the hypermarkets making them boycott the selling of the book, they cancelled that. But they couldn't cancel the party, so I and three of my colleagues went there. All of us except one were decked out in witch and wizard's costumes, which were mainly just our Mad Science lab coat with a 'cloak' (read: big piece of cloth) of our favourite colour, a witch hat (I made them myself out of hard board) and a wand (a super-size japanese chopstick, decorated personally by each of us). So, I being the lover of the colour red but not looking like an apple, decided to go for the maroon cloak and also painted my 'wand' that colour. I had also glued on a long piece of yarn that wound around it like a vine, so it looked cooler. My male colleague, Jay, went for the blue cloak and actually took the trouble to stick a golden eagle statuette at the bottom so it looked pretty cool. And another colleague, Swee Khem, who likes pink, decided to go for the Professor Umbridge look and really decked herself out in pink (an outfit I wouldn't have been caught dead in). So thus is our motley Mad Science Magic crew!
As for the fourth colleague, he came dressed like normal, so they slapped on him and every other normally dressed visitor a sign that red "Muggle", which in the Harry Potter world means non-magical folk:
And though most of the other people there were dressed like 'normal' witches and wizards, there were a few who took the extra step by dressing up as specific characters in the book, such as this fella below who dressed as Mad Eye Moody, who first appeared in book four. Don't ask me if it's a guy or a girl, coz' I'm not too sure myself....
Next, I performed possibly one of the most fun Mad Science shows I've ever done, as I had to customize everything specifically to the Harry Potter theme. It was a half an hour show, and I introduced myself as the long lost niece of Professor McGonagall (one of Harry Potter's teachers) who is a teacher at a not-famous school of magic, called the Mad Science School of Magic! And I was about to teach them some of our magical Mad Science secret, haha! I did stuff like making my "magical pet", a real live rat appear in an 'empty' pan (it was actually one of my black gerbils, Coffee!) which the audience really enjoyed. Then I showed them how to make a Rainbow Potion that can change colour from green to orange to dark blue. Then I got two kids to help me making some slime that can change colour as well. And for my grand finale, I did a super cool trick with a water cooler container where I poured in some methanol shook it up well so it evaporated, poured out the excess and lit the top of the container with my wand (I actually stuck a match on it and lit it with a lighter while yelling out a so-called lighting spell, which was pretty funny!), so a blue flame would shoot out of the container and make a loud whooshing noise that scared the pants off everyone! I called that my Dragon Breath spell, hehe! And to end it off, I pretended to want to continue my show but my assistant sent me a letter from the Mad Science School of Magic saying I had performed magic illegally in front of Muggles (at which, I looked around and yelled out when I saw a 'Muggle' in the audience) and I was to stop immediately or else I would lose my job. Of course, it was just all pre-planned to make the end of my show more interesting. And all in all, I think everyone did enjoy the show and so did I. Anyways, here are the pics:
This is me doing the colour changing slime with some kids from the audience.
And me doing the Dragon's Breath thingy. Too bad we couldn't catch the fire coming out coz' it only lasts like one second.
So after my show finished, there was a best dressed witch and wizard competition, and though they didn't think I was good enough to be a finalist (Hrmmph!) they chose my colleague Jay as a finalist. Funnily enough, his competitor for Best Dressed Wizard was only one other guy, and the other guy won. Heh. And the reason they chose my colleague was because of his wand, which actually does look pretty cool. But I still like mine better. :P
Anyways, my other colleagues who were supposed to do the other demos which were cancelled also had their Harry Potter fun in the office, as shown below by my colleagues Sharmila and Paul.
Paul even dressed up in Swee Khem's pink cloak and wore the blond wig so he looked like an Ah Kua witch, and the picture is so disturbing I think it's best not to show it here. But anyway, I will most likely post up more of the Harry Potter pics on my photo site, http://naeemng.dotphoto.com. Whenever I feel like getting round to it that is. Now if only I could magically make my car repair itself and the other guy's car too... *Sigh*....
But anyway, in conjunction with the launch of the final book, MPH had organized a Harry Potter
pre-launch party, in which they invited us Mad Scientists to go there are perform a magic-related show. They had also wanted us to perform some demonstrations on the day of the laucnh itself, but due to the whole hoohah with the hypermarkets making them boycott the selling of the book, they cancelled that. But they couldn't cancel the party, so I and three of my colleagues went there. All of us except one were decked out in witch and wizard's costumes, which were mainly just our Mad Science lab coat with a 'cloak' (read: big piece of cloth) of our favourite colour, a witch hat (I made them myself out of hard board) and a wand (a super-size japanese chopstick, decorated personally by each of us). So, I being the lover of the colour red but not looking like an apple, decided to go for the maroon cloak and also painted my 'wand' that colour. I had also glued on a long piece of yarn that wound around it like a vine, so it looked cooler. My male colleague, Jay, went for the blue cloak and actually took the trouble to stick a golden eagle statuette at the bottom so it looked pretty cool. And another colleague, Swee Khem, who likes pink, decided to go for the Professor Umbridge look and really decked herself out in pink (an outfit I wouldn't have been caught dead in). So thus is our motley Mad Science Magic crew!
As for the fourth colleague, he came dressed like normal, so they slapped on him and every other normally dressed visitor a sign that red "Muggle", which in the Harry Potter world means non-magical folk:
And though most of the other people there were dressed like 'normal' witches and wizards, there were a few who took the extra step by dressing up as specific characters in the book, such as this fella below who dressed as Mad Eye Moody, who first appeared in book four. Don't ask me if it's a guy or a girl, coz' I'm not too sure myself....
Next, I performed possibly one of the most fun Mad Science shows I've ever done, as I had to customize everything specifically to the Harry Potter theme. It was a half an hour show, and I introduced myself as the long lost niece of Professor McGonagall (one of Harry Potter's teachers) who is a teacher at a not-famous school of magic, called the Mad Science School of Magic! And I was about to teach them some of our magical Mad Science secret, haha! I did stuff like making my "magical pet", a real live rat appear in an 'empty' pan (it was actually one of my black gerbils, Coffee!) which the audience really enjoyed. Then I showed them how to make a Rainbow Potion that can change colour from green to orange to dark blue. Then I got two kids to help me making some slime that can change colour as well. And for my grand finale, I did a super cool trick with a water cooler container where I poured in some methanol shook it up well so it evaporated, poured out the excess and lit the top of the container with my wand (I actually stuck a match on it and lit it with a lighter while yelling out a so-called lighting spell, which was pretty funny!), so a blue flame would shoot out of the container and make a loud whooshing noise that scared the pants off everyone! I called that my Dragon Breath spell, hehe! And to end it off, I pretended to want to continue my show but my assistant sent me a letter from the Mad Science School of Magic saying I had performed magic illegally in front of Muggles (at which, I looked around and yelled out when I saw a 'Muggle' in the audience) and I was to stop immediately or else I would lose my job. Of course, it was just all pre-planned to make the end of my show more interesting. And all in all, I think everyone did enjoy the show and so did I. Anyways, here are the pics:
This is me doing the colour changing slime with some kids from the audience.
And me doing the Dragon's Breath thingy. Too bad we couldn't catch the fire coming out coz' it only lasts like one second.
So after my show finished, there was a best dressed witch and wizard competition, and though they didn't think I was good enough to be a finalist (Hrmmph!) they chose my colleague Jay as a finalist. Funnily enough, his competitor for Best Dressed Wizard was only one other guy, and the other guy won. Heh. And the reason they chose my colleague was because of his wand, which actually does look pretty cool. But I still like mine better. :P
Anyways, my other colleagues who were supposed to do the other demos which were cancelled also had their Harry Potter fun in the office, as shown below by my colleagues Sharmila and Paul.
Paul even dressed up in Swee Khem's pink cloak and wore the blond wig so he looked like an Ah Kua witch, and the picture is so disturbing I think it's best not to show it here. But anyway, I will most likely post up more of the Harry Potter pics on my photo site, http://naeemng.dotphoto.com. Whenever I feel like getting round to it that is. Now if only I could magically make my car repair itself and the other guy's car too... *Sigh*....
Waaahhh! My money gone!!! :((((
Argh, I've had a sucky week. Last week I went to Genting for a holiday with my colleagues, and though we had fun there, I wanted to reload credit into my phone and the credit accidentally got tranferred to a number similar to mine coz' the shop owner did the credit transfer through his phone. And when I tried to call back the number that received my credit, the idjud claimed she didn't receive any credit, though I'm 100% sure that it was sent to that number. So I was miss calling the idjud for several days just to bug her to give it back but the idjud just ignored me. Ish! So that was RM30 lost!
And if that wasn't bad enough, a couple of days ago, I got into an accident where I reversed my car too fast into a guy who was coming out of his parking space. I was only looking at the rear view mirror for cars coming directly behind but forgot to check for cars coming out of their parking spaces. So because the accident was my fault, I have to pay for the repairs to both cars, which will probably come up to around RM1000. AAAHHH!! Life is so unfair. When I do something wrong, at least I have the courtesy to make up for it, but that fool who's keeping my credit can't even bothered to return a measly 30 bucks! I am sorely tempted to call her up and pretend to be someone asking for her details so I can go to the Digi shop, report that number stolen and get it disconnected! Ha! Even if the fool can reconnect it, whatever credit is in there will be lost. Double ha! Even better if she lost all her sim card contacts too! Triple ha! Arrrggghhh, and yet I know it's not the right thing to do. Just last Friday at cell group, we were talking about forgiveness. And yeah, every Christian knows that Jesus died for us even though our lousy arses don't deserve it, therefore we should be forgiving to other who do us wrong too..... But actually doing that is so difficult I feel like my head is going to pop, wishing I could get my revenge and knowing that I shouldn't. Not like letting the idjud off the hook is gonna inspire her flock to the nearest church anyway. She's probably gonna continue living out her evil life taking advantage of other people's mistakes for her own gain. The scum!
Ok, ok, yes, I'm very angry, coupled with the fact that I have to lose one grand for my own stupid mistake on the road and half wishing I could just be mean like all the other greedy, selfish jerks in this world and just refuse to pay. And also carry out my revenge on that idjud who kept MY credit. It's so annoying! It's so frustrating! And the most I can do is mutter unmentionables to myself when no one's around and freak out on my blog! I can't even go to the gym and release my flames on the punching bag coz' they took it down! Arrgghh!!! @*$%#@*#$%!!!!!!! Life is so unfair! Woe betide me! Let me just wallow in this sinking black dark hole that is the depths of my misery!! Aiya bleh blu yargh yargh pthhh!!!! That's my impression of the Tasmanian Devil on a rampage... *Insert half angry and half crying emoticon here*
And if that wasn't bad enough, a couple of days ago, I got into an accident where I reversed my car too fast into a guy who was coming out of his parking space. I was only looking at the rear view mirror for cars coming directly behind but forgot to check for cars coming out of their parking spaces. So because the accident was my fault, I have to pay for the repairs to both cars, which will probably come up to around RM1000. AAAHHH!! Life is so unfair. When I do something wrong, at least I have the courtesy to make up for it, but that fool who's keeping my credit can't even bothered to return a measly 30 bucks! I am sorely tempted to call her up and pretend to be someone asking for her details so I can go to the Digi shop, report that number stolen and get it disconnected! Ha! Even if the fool can reconnect it, whatever credit is in there will be lost. Double ha! Even better if she lost all her sim card contacts too! Triple ha! Arrrggghhh, and yet I know it's not the right thing to do. Just last Friday at cell group, we were talking about forgiveness. And yeah, every Christian knows that Jesus died for us even though our lousy arses don't deserve it, therefore we should be forgiving to other who do us wrong too..... But actually doing that is so difficult I feel like my head is going to pop, wishing I could get my revenge and knowing that I shouldn't. Not like letting the idjud off the hook is gonna inspire her flock to the nearest church anyway. She's probably gonna continue living out her evil life taking advantage of other people's mistakes for her own gain. The scum!
Ok, ok, yes, I'm very angry, coupled with the fact that I have to lose one grand for my own stupid mistake on the road and half wishing I could just be mean like all the other greedy, selfish jerks in this world and just refuse to pay. And also carry out my revenge on that idjud who kept MY credit. It's so annoying! It's so frustrating! And the most I can do is mutter unmentionables to myself when no one's around and freak out on my blog! I can't even go to the gym and release my flames on the punching bag coz' they took it down! Arrgghh!!! @*$%#@*#$%!!!!!!! Life is so unfair! Woe betide me! Let me just wallow in this sinking black dark hole that is the depths of my misery!! Aiya bleh blu yargh yargh pthhh!!!! That's my impression of the Tasmanian Devil on a rampage... *Insert half angry and half crying emoticon here*
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)