Brain Conflict

Brain Conflict

Every morning feels like a drag to work now, and I was close to taking an emergency leave today. Morale and motivation are definitely not at the best level these days, and I've been looking forward to the weekend since this last Monday. Fair enough I feel, since I've had to come to work last Saturday and Sunday anyway. Half of my brain now tells me 'you have a lot more work to do', while the other half of it saying 'p**s off!!'. Yup, at times like this I wonder how I manage to get myself to work.

Ok la.. to be fair, I'm paid to be here from 8 to 5 to get things done, so I'll let the former half of my brain win today. It's the right thing to do anyway. Come tomorrow till Monday, my latter half of the brain will win hands down.

For now, have to psyche myself up.. Izwan Boleh!

Feeling Lucky

Feeling Lucky

I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?
- Dirty Harry, 1971 -

It's been a rather hectic beginning to the week. As matter of fact, I can't really point out exactly when my week began, since this past Saturday and Sunday were working days for me. The amount of work that they're giving us, and not to mention the increasingly unrealistic datelines they're demanding makes me feel like reporting my employers to Suhakam. Crazy.. crazy...

Anyhow, though my weekend was somehow spoilt by having to come to work, it turned out to be an enjoyable weekend for me nevertheless. The highlight of the weekend was definitely sending my car for tinting. It cost us a cool RM 1,400, and boy am I glad it times very well with my pay day. By the time I took my money out to get the tinting done, the balance in my bank account was down to 3 figures only. Not only that, they were 3 figures threatening to come down to 2. So the fact that pay day was 3 days after we've done the extra addition to the Matrix was a real help. The car feels complete now, and I've behaved like a small kid with a new toy. Jakun sket..

My ears are acting up again. I've been having this consistent problem with my hearing since I was 17. No, it's not symptoms of old age thank you. It's just that the wax in my ears have this tendency of hardening and block my eardrums. Been going to the ENT specialists on average once every 3 years now when the wax gets too hard that they have to perform a minor jet-spray treatment to remove it. The wax in my ears are threatening to get hard again now it seems. It isn't too bad now though that only one ear is affected. But there have been instances when both of my ears will get blocked and I would become partially deaf for a while. Just as recently as 3 years ago this happened to me and I could barely hear a thing for almost a week until the ENT specialist performed the routine jet-spray treatment on me. It was a bloody miserable week for me as I could barely hear and I would have to ask people to speak louder and repeat whatever they were saying. I remember watching TV at that time and I had to turn on the volume so loud that I could practically feel the sofa I was sitting on vibrating from the loud noise from the TV. Not to mention the noise it made in the house. My brother in law just got home at the same time and he claimed to have heard the noise as he parked the car. To be honest, I wished I could have turned the TV volume louder as even all that wrecking noise it was making were whispers to me.

The experience has made me to reflect countless of times and made me to count my blessings. It has given me the opportunity to have a taste of what the deaf experiences and the frustration that comes with being in a world of silence. Yeah, it is very frustrating I tell you. Very often we take for granted these simple but crucial blessings that God gifts us; the blessing of our basic 5 senses. In moments of deprivation do we realise how lucky we have been.

I do feel lucky. And blessed too.

*Sigh*

*Sigh*

I think I'm pretty much in a weekend mood already. My workstation is once again a big pile of mess, just one week after I've done a major spring cleaning here. i think I need to go on a vacation of some sort, and be away from the office for a long, long, time. I feel like driving around in my Matrix in a country of mountains and wide open land, and just drive around without any care in the world. And stay over in a country cottage where there's no chance someone would be looking for me.

Oh how I wish...

Mood to work has deserted me completely at this moment. I just feel like running off and have an early weekend. So many things to do, and so many things to remember. And I've been playing catch up for a while now, that it exasperates me. I have to say, my self esteem is not at its best at this point in time.

2 more hours and I'm outta here...

A Happy Day!

A Happy Day!

I'm so darn busy this week, but I have to get this off my chest before I begin the day.

The Happy Song

Kalau rasa gembira tepuk tangan..
Clap.. clap.. clap..
Kalau rasa gembira tepuk tangan..
Clap.. clap.. clap..
Kalau rasa gembira beginilah caranya..
Kalau rasa gembira tepuk tangan..
Clap.. clap.. clap..

Man do I feel good this morning. In fact, the build up to my such good feeling today had started since yesterday, when I went to JPJ to register my car. Yup, that's it folks. I've finally got my Matrix baby. We arrived at JPJ Wangsa Maju at 8.30 am yesterday, which was actually rather late if you intend to bid for the good numbers. We had listed down a few numbers for bidding, and I was quite keen on this one particular number, 3389, which was in fact similar to my father's authentic Volvo's number. But amazingly, the number was taken up in the space of 15 minutes while we were waiting to be called to the counter to register. We managed to get another number on our list however. Our list was courtesy of our car dealer, who is a nice Chinese guy and apparently very literate with the meanings of numbers. The number we got in the end was 3963, and it apparently means 'easy to get rich', or so he says. My father on the other hand said the 2 numbers in the middle somehow implied a 'reversed' playboy, apparently refering to the misplaced '69'. Haha... We were lucky that there weren't too many people registering their vehicles yesterday, and the registration process that usually would have taken up 2 hours, were completed in only half an hour. Nasib baikk...

Drove the car home last night with a coat hangar stuck in my mouth, smiling all the way home. There's no describing the feeling of driving the car out of the showroom. And this morning, I arrived at the office about half an hour late. Was being extra careful on the road; no ciluk2 (jumping queues) this morning, and it was the first time in my recorded memory that I took more than 5 minutes to park my car. *sigh* I think it's a normal behaviour that comes with having something new... hehe..

Will be sending the car for V-Kool installation this weekend. Then my new Matrix will be complete. Insya-Allah and Alhamdulillah...

Ok la back to work. Can't believe I've written this long already. Before that, another happy song for the road:

Mari kita..Mari kita..
Bergembira tepok tangan sama sama
Kita menari sambil langgar kanan kiri
Goyang badan goyang kaki
Hooree hooree
Hip hip hooree
Hooree hooree hooree hooree
Hip hip hooree hooree hooree
Bergembira, bergembira
Ha ha ha ha
La la la la la la la la la.........

An Alarming Morning

An Alarming Morning

The whole house was wokened up by the house security alarm this morning. The alarm triggered off around 5 this morning, and yours truly was in the bathroom setting out for some toilet business. And to add coincidence to the story, there was also a separate incident happening in the bathroom just before the alarm was triggered; i had an encounter with a cockroach of grandfather-sized proportion, which apparently was as surprised and horrified to see me as I was to see it. The cockroach actually tried to find a place to hide, attempting to squeeze itself through the small holes of the sift that drains the water from the bathroom to the gutter outside. Back in the days when it was of a relatively quaint size, it would have probably escaped. Fat cockroach had no such luck this time and I went for the kill.

It was actually quite skillful in dodging the gayung i was using to wham it, and it actually had the nerve to make a counter attack on me. While I was clobbering away maddeningly, hitting the brave roach a couple of times slightly, that was when the alarm triggered off and my attention was immediately taken away to more serious concern.

The memory of my house being broken into in October last year suddenly came back rushing in my mind, and instinctively I grabbed a long spear that was in my room (which my father must have gotten from the many souvenirs he received while he was serving in Sarawak) and went out to check what was going on. Outside in the living room was my father, clad only in his kain sarong and a long sword in his hands, apparently prepared for any possibility. While we might have looked like rejected extra casts from The Lord of The Rings, the anxiety we felt was real. We went and inspected hurriedly at the possible points where we felt the house might have been broken through, bracing for any possibility. It was at this point that I only began to realise, I was only clad in a towel.

The indicator on the alarm control system showed that the breach or its attempt that prompted the alarm was made from my room and my brother's. However, we couldn't find any signs of attempt to break into the house anywhere. As the mystery deepened and anxiety escalated, I mentioned about my personal duel with the heroic roach earlier. Apparently, the impact of my bangings of the gayung on the tile floor caused enough vibration to set off the security alarm, which had a sensor placed at the toilet's ventilator.

There were nervous sighs of relief at this confession of mine all over in the house, and we were prepared to dismiss the incident due to that. We then set about to get ourselves ready for Subuh. But could that really be the reason for triggering the alarm? Or could someone actually tried to breach into our house through the ventilator of my bathroom, and somehow clumsily ran off triggering the alarm, at the sound of the bangings that I was making in the bathroom? Hmm... I don't know. We checked the windows and the ventilator from outside this morning and there were no signs of attempted forced entry.

I went back to my bathroom after we reset the alarm, getting ready for Subuh. To my surprise, the badly wounded roach was still running around looking for escape. Must have been one of those dim ones (and mightily strong as well) I guess, still running about unable to figure out where to hide after all that time.

I took the aerosol can and got it out of its misery.

What a way to start off the weekend.

Decisions... Decisions...

Decisions... Decisions...

Life is full of decisions. At the moment, I feel like there is so many for me to make. Decisions to make at work, at home, in my personal life, in my relations with friends and families etc. Suddenly i feel as though I have to make decisions on so many things at the same time that my head feels like bursting.

I guess it doesn't help that I'm the kinda person you can describe as crisis-shirker. Meaning I would usually avoid confrontations, or situations where I would be required to make a critical decision. When the going gets tough, I choose to have a coffee break instead, rather than buff up and get tough. I know it is not right, and I'm still conditioning myself to get better at handling problems life sometimes offers you.

The biggest decision I've had to make this year was buying a new car. Ohh.. haven't I mentioned this before? I decided that I would need a bigger car than my previous 2-door Satria. Thought of making do with wifey's Kelisa in the short term to help our budget, but with car prices expected to go up in the next couple of months, I guess I had to make a move soon. And what car is it?



The drool-inducing Matrix


At RM74k (on the road price, insurance and additional accessories included), I find it a good steal. We're pretty much in the process of finalising the purchase deal. The only thing that's stalling the process is the fact that I do not yet have enough money to supplement my car loan. I have to cough up an additional RM14k or so to make the deal complete. To be honest, it's not that i do not have the money. Remember the Satria I've offloaded? I actually make around RM20k from the sale of that car. And my inability to get my hands on that money is a problem that stands out like a sore thumb with me now.

Some people say making deals with friends is not so different from dealing with the devil himself. Oh well, ok... I made that up. But really, you know what the attitude is like when you make deals with friends or families. The theme would usually be 'lebih kurang'. 'Alaa... dengan member pun nak berkira ke, lebih kurang je laa...' is the order of the day. The friend or family member you're dealing with would expect you to give them some lee-way if they somehow do not come good with their promise or part of the bargain. And the problem is more often than not, you will end up more on the 'kurang' side than on the 'lebih'. Mana boleh tahann...

I offloaded the Satria to a close friend who promised me to give me the proceeds in a month's time, and mind you, we made this deal in early Feb 05. And now it'd mid April 05 already. What pisses me off is that why did he make such promise when he knew it was going to be difficult for him to come good with it? And what pisses me of further is that I still have to pay the car's loan monthly instalments until the car has been sold. Ok la, to be fair to him, he is selling the car for me and not buying it from me. He does second hand car dealership in his part time you see. But had he been honest with me about what the real scenario would have been, I wouldn't have been so annoyed. I would have at least planned my finances accordingly. Or maybe offloaded it elsewhere.

So let that be a lesson to you Izwan...

On another note, after a looong contemplation, I've finally decided to register for my ACCA exams in June 2005. That proved to be another tough decision to make. Coughed out GBP 153 for the registration just now, so really have to hit the books in the next month and a half.

Not to mention reduce the visits to San Francisco Coffee to stay easy on the wallet... :-(

How To Make an Izwan

How To Make an Izwan

How to make a Izwan

Ingredients: 1 part friendliness 3 parts silliness 3 parts leadership

Method: Combine in a tall glass half filled with crushed ice. Add a little lustfulness if desired!

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

Jogging!

Jogging!

Managed to get away from the office for an hour or so for a session of jogging today. The chance to do so is very rare these days, when I could not be seen leaving my workstation earlier than 7 pm without getting groans of disapproval from many. I would love to say that it's due to my unquestionable popularity here, but if only that was true. Everybody needs answers to their requests and queries pronto from me, and honestly there are times when I even forget what i was going to do on any given day to begin with.

Been piling up the weight like no one's business, so hopefully the 45 minutes jog session would do me good.

Any Given Sunday

Any Given Sunday

For the first time in weeks, yesterday's Sunday turned out to be a normal one for me. Normal in a sense that I could do whatever I wanted to do on any given Sunday. What I'm getting at is that it was the first Sunday in the last couple of weeks that I didn't have to come to the office and instead spent it like anyone would on a normal Sunday.

I think it has a relaxing effect on me already. I'm not as grouchy and as negative come Monday morning. All work and no play does make Izwan a very groucy boy... The Monday blues effect is somehow less. I do believe that to be effective, you have to have a good balance of work and play. But really, when it comes to it, work can be real murder.

Went to Midvalley Megamall with wifey yesterday. Main mission: to get a baby monitor for baby Hannah. We had surveyed KLCC for it, but every store we went that sells baby products seem to have sold it out. Luckily, Jayajusco in Megamall has it, and now my sister could be more flexible to be around the house. The baby monitor showed how practical it could be already yesterday when we were having dinner last night. I had a quick eerie sense when the baby monitor suddenly came to live, the one that sort of reminded you to movies like Signs or The Ring. First came the static sound for the first 10 seconds or so, and then the cries that the baby made. It's a wonderful gadget nevertheless, that it would catch the slightest of sounds the baby makes, but not other light sounds in the background (e.g. the fan, walking movements etc). So it was a day of wonderful discovery for yours truly...;-).

Also bought myself 2 long sleeve shirts for work while in Midvalley. My wife said that my other shirts are getting a bit worn out. So today, i'm wearing one of those I bought yesterday. It gives me that sense of newness today... no wonder I don't feel the blues so much. Hehe... and to cap the wonderful day, we had ice cream at Baskin Robbins before leaving for home. And just to share such a wonderful feeling I had yesterday, I bought 2 more quarts of Baskins to take away home for the whole family.

And that's what I call a real Sunday... ;-)

Wish I Was Elsewhere

Wish I Was Elsewhere

Hi there. It has been another long hiatus eh? I guess some people are beginning to get used to that fact on this blog. Yup, the blue moon comes by as often as my updates. I'm really sorry folks (like there's really anyone out there anymore!), but I've been so preoccupied (the usual excuse eh?). This time of the year, the month of March and April to be exact, is a humongously busy time for people in my line. Well, I know, I know... I can almost hear murmurs at the back saying my updates have always been few and far in between at any time in the year... *sigh*..

Ok la.. so maybe it's just a lame reason for lack of updates. Having said that, I'm in the office today, even though Saturday is not an official working day for my company. Forever trying to tie up loose ends... it's that time of the year of audit, reports, and company board meetings. It's that time of the year when bilis in the company like me gets enmeshed in the sambal for the nasi lemak that's to be served to the big fishes...

Some metaphor...

Honestly, though my body is here, my mind has been all over the place this morning. Here's a list of places I would rather be this point of time:

1. In bed... I could just sleep the whole morning.
2. In front of the TV watching the Amazing Race.
3. At the cinemas, contemplating on what show to watch in the afternoon.
4. Queenstown, New Zealand. Couldn't get enough of the place.
5. Anywhere else but here...

There are some other things on my mind that's been bugging me off late, but maybe that's for another entry.

At the moment, I have to hold on tight to the reins that's holding my mind from running away from my body, and get some work done.