Beanie Babies

Working in a MNC company, my colleagues and I liase with quite a number of colleagues who are working in other countries. I’m worked with people from US, Israel, India, Hong Kong and others. But mostly with US, because there’s where my company is based.

Right now, I’m working on a project with a team of people in Malaysia and also a team of people in US. We are all team members and we liase with each other a lot. There’s a project technical lead from US who’s been on business trips to our office for a few times now. And every time he’s here, he comes bearing gifts from US. Gifts that other US team members had bought the team members in our office. We’ve received key chains, postcards, souvenirs and lots more.

The latest that we have received is the cutest of all ! They are beanie babies ! One for each of us

All of us has found different ways to display our beanie babies in our own cubicles. As a result, it’s amusing to see that everyones’ cubicle with beanie baby. It really lightens up the boring office environment.

Almost everyone has a different beanie baby, I didn’t know there were such a variety of beanie babies. Each of them comes with name and a birthdate too.

Last but not least, the cutest beanie baby of them ALL :

That’s Robson, my beanie baby

My First Post Meme

My first Meme !

Suzette tagged me on this meme. So this is what I’m suppose to do :

<copy from Suzette> You are supposed to recycle your very first post. Copy and paste the first post and then see how much you have improved, changed, turned lousy, etc.

Well, my actually first post is very simple, it only has 1 sentence :

“This is my first post. haha”

 LOL !

I think this is still in my old blog. But I’ve already removed it from this blog, it’s a pointless post anyway.

So, let’s take this other post as my first post, this is a post when I annouce to everyone that I’ve moved into my apartment together with hubs (then fiance). I was really really happy about it because hubs and I has waited for so long for it :

I’ve moved into my new apartment. Finally. Those who know me will know how much I’ve been looking forward to it and how loooong I’ve waited for it to happen. My very own home…. All these years since graduating, I’ve been renting, heck, even while studying in Uni, I’ve been renting. I’m sooo tired of renting. Paying for the rent is alright, but having to deal with difficult housemates that’s the worst part.

Housemates come and go, everytime a housemate moved out, there’s the hassle of looking for another replacement, and everytime a new housemate moves in, I’ve gotta take precaution. Hide all my jewellry, cash, lock the room door. Hey, you would do that too if a total stranger moves into your house. I’ve had my share of lousy housemates over the years. I’ve had demanding housemates, housemates who watch TV loudly in the middle of the night, housemates who use my phone and never pay back for the calls, housemates who asked to borrow money from me and also never pay back, housemates who don’t get along with other housemates, housemates with boyfriend problems, housemates who default on rental and goes missing when asked to pay rental, housemates who use my microwave and overheat a charsiupau until the charsiupau explode in the microwave (it’s true, I swear)!!!
Ok, you get it, I had my share of lousy housemates.

But now, I don’t need to deal with all these housemates anymore. NO MORE.

Had I improved? I don’t know.  I think the quality of my writing is still the same. I always have trouble expressing my thoughts the way I want to. Guess that’s my writing limitation. Have to read more to improve on my english.

I think this meme is quite fun. Reading this old post made me think back about the time when I was so frusfrated waiting for the apartment to be ready (the construction of the apartment was delayed for 1/2 year) , and how happy I was when it was finally ready. 

Now I would like to tag :

chrissaro and charsiu

to do this meme. 

It’s my birthday ….

err, 2 days ago. hehe

Wanted to blog about it, but hubs beat me to it. So, head over to his blog to read about my simple and quiet birthday

Thank God it’s …a 3-day weekend

really…thank goodness it’s Raya this weekend and we are having an extra day off. The past 2 weeks has been very hectic at work. Tasks are piling up, it’s finish one thing and the next thing is waiting for me. And it’s not only my task, I also have to help other team members with their task and track their progress too.

At the same time, I’m actually having a blast at work. There are new stuff to learn, new experience, new challenges. It’s just that last week was really busy and draining for me to juggle the tasks at work. Even at home, I’d be thinking about my work and checking my e-mails. My apartment’s a mess, I don’t remember when’s the last time I mopped the floor or clean the bathroon. So, this 3 day weekend holiday is a welcome break for me.

I’ll still probably need to work at home over the weekend. But at least it’s at my own pace and at my own convenient. Hopefully, I can clear some things and have less to juggle come next week (but I don’t think so)

I’m plan to just lay low this weekend. Spend it quietly. Catch up on my household chores, read some books. Relax and clear my mind.

Hope you have a nice weekend too

Why Aiyu?

Chrissaro asked my why I named my blog Aiyu. It’s for a simple reason actually. Because Ayu is too short

I originally wanted to name it Ayu. For no reason other than because I think it’s a very nice word. Ayu is a Malay name. It means pretty or beautiful. Not that I’m saying that I am ‘Ayu’. But I just think it’s a beautiful name. It can also be a Japanese name. The famous Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki is also known as Ayu. I don’t know if Ayu has any meaning in Japanese though.

I was contemplating to start a new blog in wordpress for quite some time after abandoning my old blog. I thought of a lot of names for my new blog and Ayu was one of them. 

When I planned on creating a new blog, I would sit down in front of the computer and start all the registratioon stuff but I would always get stuck at the blog name. Because most of the names are already taken. Then I would abandon my efforts, just because I didn’t get the blog name that I set out to register. This happened for a few times and my plan to create a blog got postponed and postponed again.

In the end, at hubs urging, I just sat down, opened the wordpress website and started registering again. I used Ayu, but it failed because wordpress required at least 4 characters. So, I just added an ‘i’ in Ayu and it became Aiyu. Ta-da…that’s how Aiyu came about.

Simple story, really. So, Chrissaro, how did your name come about?

Back in Hometown

Last weekend, I went back to my hometown in Perak. Hubs has a track event in Kampung Gajah, Perak yesterday. He left early in the morning and will only be back in the evening. My mum’s away holidaying in the East Coast with friends. Meanwhile dad is sleeping on the couch, with the TV on, and newspaper on his chest. Ah, the life of a retiree.  It’s so blissful to be back at my parent’s house. There’s nothing much to do here, other than eat, watch Astro (cable TV) and sleep. Astro is a luxury to me, since I don’t have it in my apartment back in KL. I could watch Astro for the whole day. I’m a couch potato. If I’m at my apartment, I’d be restless, I’d be pottering around the house, doing household chores and other stuff. Load of things will fill my mind on the chores that I need to do, things I need to take care of. Back here, my mind is completely blank. There’s really not much to do, mum takes care of everything here. I can just relax, rest and be a complete lazy-ass.  

My dad bought me some ‘char siu pau’ for tea. This pau (bun) is a bit different from the Hong Kong style pau that we eat at dim sum restaurants. My friend Suzette calls it ‘home style’ pau.

 

I guess it’s because this is the more traditional pau. I’ve been eating this home-style pau since I was little. There’s even a red/pink dot on the top of the pau, that’s how the sellers differentiate which pau has char siu (pork) filling and another without the red/pink dot, is the pau with kaya (sugar and egg type of jam) filling.

The Hong Kong style pau is fluffier and softer, while the home-style pau is denser and the size is bigger. I think most people prefer the Hong Kongstyle pau more, due to it’s softer texture.

 

Me? I like any char siu pau. No dim sum meal would be complete for me if there’s no char siu pau. I love to eat char siu pau. Why do you think I named my previous blog ‘Char Siu Pau’  :)     

2007 Shanghai Grand Prix

Warning : Don’t continue reading if you don’t want to know the results for 2007 Shanghai F1 Grand Prix.Shanghai F1 Grand Prix is going on now, less than 20 laps to go. What an exciting race, I think all races with rain are exciting races. It’s can be unpredictable. It was raining at the beginning of the race. The track is drying up right now, and some of the racers like Massa has pitted for dry tyres. But the sky is threatening to rain again!There’s a lot of incident going on in this race. There’s one incident where we are shown Ralf Schumacher spinning out of the track, then suddenly bam…the camera goes blank, looks like the camera was hit by another F1 car ! Later in the replay, we see that the camera was actually hit by a Spyker F1 car. The camera was hit right at the same time when it’s capturing the spin if Ralf’s spinning car. I hope no one’s hurt in that incident.

Omigod !!!! Hamilton is out !!! Hamilton is out!! Hamilton is out !! Fans of Alonso and Kimi rejoice ! Hamilton’s not going to seal his Championship in this race. The British must be so disappointed. I can hear the disappointment and loss of excitement in James Allen (Of ITV-F1) ’s voice. Hamilton’s going to have to fight for it in Brazil, and what a fight Brazil is going to be. 3 way fight to the Championship title.

Hamilton ran wide on his way to the pit stop to get dry tyres. He ended up at the gravel trap. I think he was trying to get the stewards to give him a push to the race track, his engine was still running. Ha! Don’t thinks so, Hamilton. I think only Michael Schumacher has ever successfully pulled a stunt like that. I believe he’s having trouble with his car, he’s already ran wide several times before that, running on wet tyres on a drying up track, allowing the faster Kimi to overtake him for the race lead. Could it be McClaren taking a too defensive strategy for Hamilton by stretching his pit stop?

Hopefully Kimi will finish first and Alonso will finish second. Then it’s going to be the most exciting race in Brazil, the last race for this year’s F1 season.

Just Married

 Fiance and I are officially married ! We went to the temple ‘Thien Hou Kong’ for the registration of our marriage.

 I’m someone’s wife now! wow….

 

Both our parents, my aunt and hubs’ (upgraded from fiance ;P)  little nephew attended our registration. It’s was a small and simple event. 

After that, we went home and celebrated with these very cute and very sweet cupcakes.

 

Life’s still the same, I guess it’s just making things offficial. Hubs washed the dishes after dinner yesterday so I would say we are off to a great start ! )

 

Sick Again

I’m sick again! Nothing serious, just flu that’s all.

It’s funny, normally with flu comes cough, sore throat, fever. But this time, it’s just flu. I can still go about my daily activities, just feel a bit tired and sleepy sometimes.

I can still go to work (and spread the flu around to other people). Ah, I wish I can stay at home and sleep. But cannot, lots of things to do in the office.

I hate being sick.

Busy busy busy

Things has been getting busy busy busy off late.

There’s lots of things to take care of with the wedding around the corner….egads!…..it’s coming soon!!!!!

It seems like I’m so busy with the wedding and also with work in the office, there seems to be a thousand things on my mind. But but…..is there really a thousand things? I don’t know. In my mind, there seems to be loads of stuff to do. Like it’s lots of things that I haven’t taken care of. And I’m worried that things I might have left things at the last minute. As each day inch closer to the wedding date, I’m getting more and more anxious, more and more ‘kan cheong’, more and more nervous, more and more…PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!

But then, when I really think over things. There is really not much to be done. It’s just the tiny details that haven’t been taken care of, and there are things that have to wait. So, just breathe…..deep breathes…..
Have to keep cool.

Perhaps it’s the pressure, perhaps it’s the stress, my mind’s a bit celaru, even kelabu….or kerabu…or coconuts…..or maybe completely bonkers….

…hand me a drink…take me shopping….I’ll be ok