Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Buzzy busy bee blogging.

Yes, yes, I know I’ve been missed. Or so I wish. Anyway, the last week has been crazy. Actually, now that I look back, it’s been about 13 days since I last blogged. Talk about time flying.

As I was saying, me busy. Crazy busy. It’s been a non-stop roller coaster of events, especially at work. I’ll do a little breakdown:

My Birthday, May 13
My birthday (thanks for the wishes. I’ve decided to stay 25 for another year, snort) was a laid-back celebration, which I preferred. The office threw a little cake cutting ceremony for all those celebrating their birthdays in May and my colleagues bought me clothes from MNG as a gift (thanks guys!). At night, Lester brought me out for dinner and we met up with Mia, Adrian, Sel and Pu for coffee after. Me so touched to have my close friends surround me on my birthday. Thanks for coming out peeps, especially since it was raining heavily that night.

Sunset Cruise, May 16
Had to do a story on the Kinabalu Sunset Cruise package so spent the evening on board the Pangkor. I have to admit it was nice to end a long day at the office cruising the South China Sea, watching the sunset and enjoying a glass of wine. Would’ve been nicer without the diesel fumes though. As the sun set, we enjoyed a buffet style dinner while I did the usual who/what/when/how routine with the owner of the boat. At night, we had a nice view of the city lights at the harbour. Just as we got back to shore, it started to pour. Went back home, hugged my cat and was off to bed.

Adobe Pagemaker, May 18-19
Yep, finally learned how to use Adobe Pagemaker. My boss has been urging me and Melina, my colleague, to learn how to use Pagemaker so we could get involved in design work. So off to a two-day course in Cosmopoint we went. Our trainer turned out to be my secondary schoolmate, Brenda. And, get this: There were only 2 of us in the class. So we had Brenda all to ourselves (wait a minute, that doesn’t sound right…). Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea were provided and everything was smooth sailing. Two days later, we emerged Pagemaker extraordinaires. Heh. Certificates and all.

Pub inspections, May 21-23
And a-drinking we went. Haw, Mel C, Daniel and I (all of us colleagues) piled into the office Hilux on Saturday afternoon and made our way to Keningau (a town some 2 and a half hours away from KK) for our first pub inspection. We had dinner, witnessed a gang fight and, again, braved the rain. At nine pm, we switched to party mode and hoped for the best from Peppermint Pub and Lounge (the name wasn’t very promising to start off with…). To make a long story short, we started off the night rather mellow, drinking warm beer – I kid you not – and singing (or slaughtering) Bon Jovi songs. I dunno when it exactly began but I think it was somewhere between the fourth and the fifth jug of warm beer we started getting ‘happy’ and even the pub staff were having fun watching us having fun. I’m not gonna say much because the night was a blur of singing, dancing, crawling in the hotel lobby and spilling fish curry on my pink pajamas. I’ll let the photos do the talking.

Day 2 we headed towards the mountain. Well actually, we had to drive back to KK for 2 and a half hours, have lunch, and drive another 2 and a half hours in the other direction. I was looking forward to the cool mountain air for a change. They had no more rooms in the hotel we checked into, being a public holiday and all, so we had to take what was left: A suite on the top floor. Heh, not complaining. We had an amazing view of the mountain! The bed was huge so we spent the earlier part of the evening ‘mattress diving’.
Evening rolled around. Looking for a decent meal in unfamiliar territories always proves to be an adventure. No gang fights this time around but the coffee shop was full of flying insects that kept landing on our food, nose, ears...You get the pic. Tired from our journey, all four of us lazed around in the suite watching Master & Commander (long movie, I wasn’t paying attention) and we only hauled ass at almost ten pm to the pub downstairs. The beer was cold, so that was good. Service? Bad. They turned off most of the lights, air conditioner, music and tv at exactly 12am. Problem is, we were still IN the pub. With half a jug to go. Annoyed and still thirsty, we bought six bottles of beer and brought it up to the room. Again, I’ll let the photos tell the story of Four Friends and Six Bottle of Beer.


Swedes on a Sunset Cruise, May 24
Last night, I went on the sunset cruise (again) but this time to accompany six Swedish gentlemen, who are checking out Sabah’s potential in hosting their next company event. Anyway, did the usual hand-shaking, name-card exchanging routine. What was supposed to be a simple four-hour meet and greet session turned out to be a drinking session that lasted till 1am. Beer, Chivas, Long Island Tea…I had ‘em all. I haven’t even recuperated from the previous drinking session so imagine my horror. Sigh.

…And today I am trying to deal with the shitload of work on my desk. FYI, writing this entry began at around 10am and I finally completed it at 2:30pm. Tonight, I’m playing futsal with my colleagues. I’m tired but, in some strange way, being this busy beats having nothing to do. And my French classes begin next week, aaarrrgh!

Coming soon to a blog near you: Photos of my weekend.

Cheers.


"Why do birds suddenly appear, everytime you are near?
Just like me, they long to be....Close to you."
-The Carpenters, Close To You. Yep, one too many karaoke sessions this week.

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