The trip that was supposed to last for 2 weeks is now finally over, after 3 weeks. I'm happy to say that work wise it all went very well. We accomplished everything that we set out to accomplish and we also managed to launch another program.

And after 3 weeks of extreme sleep deprivation, I'm ready for a short break. One of the mornings I decided to take the wheel as my colleague had to be on a call. While I was driving, I couldn't stop the feeling that the car seat was unusually warm. Bearing in mind it's actually summer here, it's not a nice warm feeling but more like I felt like my butt was getting cooked. When we stopped for coffee, I decided to check the car seat. Guess what? I accidentally turned the car seat heater on. Which explained why my butt was getting cooked.

After we got coffee, I got back into the car and stared at my colleague for the car key. Turns out I left the car keys in my bag in the back seat. I had to get out, and grab the keys before continuing the drive to work. He was very amused. I was very tired. And not a morning person.

Anyway, so the routine was breakfast, if I woke up in time, otherwise, coffee run, then office, the back to the hotel for dinner. Dinner and some drinks for a hour or so, before going back up to work until the wee hours of the morning. Grabbed a few hours of sleep before we started all over again. So yes, I'm ready for a few days off.

And after the drama of not getting tickets home, I am all packed for my flight tomorrow. Yes I'm finally coming home. And the house will be empty because my parents are on vacation. As of today. At least I know I will have a very highly excited dog when I finally reach home. She will be so deprived of human affection that she will be all over me. Which is not a bad thing after being away for 3 weeks.

I don't miss being away from home. But I do miss my stuff. I am so sick of the couple of outfits that I've been wearing and the shoes I have to keep wearing. I'm ready to go back to my stuff. ®

It's been such a busy week. We landed last weekend and since then, it's been a series of late night calls for the project I'm still working on back home. So it's been 12, 1 & 2 am calls daily. Then the big boss likes to reach the office by 8am. It's a 1hr drive from the hotel we're staying. So we meet bright & early at 7am. Which means I have to get up at 6. To be honest, I didn't even get up at 6 ever when I was studying. But I did anyway. So bedtime had been 3am, and alarm goes off at 6am. By 3pm in the afternoon I was pretty much done. I couldn't focus. I was dazed, had to keep blinking. Good news was that as a result, I wasn't jetlagged. I was just very quiet & stoned during dinnertime. And by Friday, I was pretty much stoned and dazed.

But if I had to pick any trip to go on, this would have been a good one still. For almost 2 years, I hadn't met any of the other guys who I spoke to on a regular basis. And in 1 trip, I met almost everyone. It was good to not only meet them, but to see them interact and out of their home base. It was really a coincidence that all of us were here at the same time doing different things.

I have to say it's definitely been an interesting trip. And they're all mostly gone, there's only the 2 of us left now. And after the hectic schedule last week, we decided to move to the hotel nearer to the office, now that the boss has gone back. Sleep is more precious.

It's actually quite interesting that the men that I've with were so excited abt the outlet shopping that we went to yesterday. During the dinner, they kept talking abt the stores that they were going to and where I should go as well.

So we planned to meet at 11 in the lobby, so that we would reach there abt 12 and start shopping. I set my alarm for 10am. Next thing I know, my room phone was ringing. Took me a while to realize what the noise was. Then I looked at the clock. SHIT! It was 11:20 and they had been waiting downstairs for 20mins. Why they didn't ring me up before that I don't know. So we changed the time to 12 instead. So somehow I can wake up at 6 with 3 hrs of sleep, but I can't wake up at 10am with 8hrs of sleep. I must be really tired.

So 4 hrs of outlet shopping later, one of my colleagues asked for the time. When he realized it was already 5 plus almost 6, he looked shocked. 'Have we been walking around for so long?' I would say I was finished long before the 2 of them were. And I'm the only female. But I now have a sad face on my credit card I doubt theirs does.

Anyway, so it's moving day. We're moving from the city to somewhere quieter in the suburbs. They keep telling me there's a huge mall near where we're staying. I really like how the men I work with are the ones telling me where I can shop and what I can buy. Especially the little titbit that the VS store in the suburb is bigger than the one in the city mall. I held back from asking them how they knew.

Now how can I explain to my colleague how I need the car so that I can go VS shopping and shopping for cosmetics? ©

It's been late nights and even later starts for me recently. A gal's gotta get her beauty sleep afterall right? So I decide that because of the extremely long and extremely long to do list, I'm going to stay home to work. So no worries about commuting, lunch breaks or getting pulled away by colleagues for impromptu discussion which takes up so much time.

So far I've yet to start on what I intially stayed home to do. I've been sucked into testing these 2 other programs that are also on my to do list. Which brings me to what I think is so stupid it's hilarious I absolutely have to share it.

Ok, this site I'm working on is an online shopping site. So we're trying to setup various promotions. One of which is a bundle deal in which if you buy product A, you're entitled to product B for free (FOC order).

Scenario 1: I placed an order for product A and send it through to the back office. I log into the backoffice to check, I only see product A. I don't see product B.

Scenario 2: I placed an order for both product A & B. And this time I find that I'm getting charged for product B.

Scenario 3: I placed an order for product B then product A in this order. I'm getting charged for product B but I get a note saying I'm entitled to a free product B with my purchase of product A.

So basically, if I buy product A only, I don't get my free product B. And if I add both to my shopping cart, I get charged for my supposedly free product B. And lastly if I don't order them in the correct order I also get charged.

Anyone smells a scam? It's amazing that the developers don't think of this. Oh well, back to work. Need to get them to change this. before we get sued by someone.®

It's been such a long time since I've had time off just for myself. Ok, correction. I'm actually stealing time off from trying to finish some work stuff to have some downtime. I know it's sad. But I just don't know why it just seems as though there's a never ending list of things to do. They call you in and tell you that the Boss wants the document (which will take hours to draft) by the end of the day. At 4pm. Only good news is that end of their day is 8 hrs away because they're in another time zone. But still.

A week ago I thought that I would have some downtime finally since my program was now live. But I guess it's just not to be. I'm just tired because it feels like I haven't had enough time to recover from the past couple of months of crazy work hours just to plunge head first into another round of crazy work hours.

The insane thing is that I can't really complain because I'm not the only one working these hours. A couple of people in the office are also doing likewise. Of course, they're not getting the same pay as I am, they're getting more.

In short, I'm just frustrated. With some people at work, from lack of sleep and of course from stress. I have to honestly say I need a holiday. And I'm not joking. I see a crash coming if it doesn't come anytime soon. ®

So much for happy hopes of my time off. The subsequent days have been such a nightmare. It's like my retribution for taking time off. It'll take way too long to go into details except that it's been physically & mentally challenging and immensely stressful.

On top of this, I've been having a continuous stream of bad luck. I certaintly hope that today was the max. I swung my foot into the glass bathroom door (I was still groggy from sleep) and now there's a bruise on my heel, I found a baby roach in the soup I was drinking & the straw for my drink had a hole in it. This was just today, and not including work. Did I mention that I love that soup from that stall? Yes, it's really been such a sucky day/ month.

I hope that I've hit rock bottom, otherwise I dread how much worse things can be. ®

After a very long couple of months, I finally have some time off! But since it's been planned as 'me' time, I'm not going anywhere. Just the usual hair & nails stuff. But you know what? The only thing on my mind is 'do not check emails, do not check emails, hmm... Wonder if he replied to my emails, NO! Do NOT check emails'. I think next time I take time off, I really need to go somewhere, where there's no Internet reception or mobile reception. But who am I kidding, if there wasn't I won't go.

I think this is karma, or retribution for the years I've skived off in school. For the number of times I should have gone to school but didn't. Choosing instead to stay home and sleep. And now? I simply can't switch off. Thank goodness I got talked out of getting a data plan for my phone by my friends. Else, all I'd be doing the whole day while I'm on leave would be checking the stupid phone.

Ok, so now I have to focus on just doing things I've put off for the longest time. Like finishing the books I have to return by next week or cleaning my room... Of the two, I'm more likely to just finish the books. Cleaning the room is just too much of a chore for a slouth like me.

Anyway, just an update, well, I'm still working round the clock. My phone bills have sky rocketed. I'm currently ranked no.2 on the conference call billings. And I still don't know how to have a life. I am working on it. But I think I need more practice. Maybe I need to take more time off?

Ok, back to trying not to check my emails... And reading my books. ®

Every now and again something really entertaining happens to bring some fun into a workday. At about 4 this afternoon, suddenly this strange smell flooded the office. It smelt like something was cooking... After a while, the smell got stronger. People started standing up and asking if the others smelt it too.

I smelt it, but somehow thought it was just my imagination, so I ignored it. Then the smell got really obvious. It was microwave butter popcorn! 1 colleague stood up and said 'this smells like the cinema.' This other colleague decided to go check out the pantry to try and find the culprit. Meanwhile, I could see other people standing up. The smell was just too puzzling!

We started speculating about where the smell could possibly be coming from and who was making popcorn! The one who went to the pantry came back with no luck. Turns out nobody was in the pantry, and no one was making anything.

We got a memo a couple of months back because people were complaining that the office smelt like food due to some of our habits of eating at our desk. Obviously, this was an infringement on that complaint. We told the admin manager to find the culprit, confiscate the popcorn and share it with us.

Finally, we found the culprits. There is another mini pantry in one of the other rooms. So the popcorn smell wafted out from the mini pantry, into the other room, out into the main office space. My colleague who found it walked out with a smug look on her face and a handful of popcorn!

Currently, if you breathe in deeply, you can still smell the faint smell of the popcorn. LOL. ®

All evening I've been stewing over something unplesant that happened at work as a result of an irrelevant irritant. I was planning to bitch all about it until I realized. Pests aren't worth the time that we spend worrying about them. We should just exterminate them, then remove the offending creatures from our surroundings. So that's what I'm going to do. Besides, talking about it more would only serve to piss me off again. I've done nothing wrong, so my conscience is clear.

Anyway, work has been absolutely crazy. Because of the way the department is structured (global), and because the client is based in the opposite timezone, I feel like I'm literally working round the clock. And I'm so tired. I've had to cancel a planned (but airtix not booked) vacation because as clients always do, they want to come visit you when you're planning to go on leave. So I've decided to cancel that vacation and channel my focus on my year end vacation (hopefully save more moolah too). In order to perk myself up I've planned a day off between the weekend and a public holiday. That way, I have 4 days to do nothing but sleep after this project is all complete. I can't wait.

But hopefully, the others I have on my hand will also be done, and I can have at least 1-2 weeks of lull before the mayham begins again. But on the bright side, working with this varied crew of people is definitely interesting, especially with the personalities that are on board. At least it's not boring. It can be worse, it can be insanely boring. ®

The thing about my house is that because it's so old, everytime there is a thunderstorm with lightning, it invaribly leads to power outage. The lightning would strike and the circuit breaker would trip. So the one day I could not get out of bed and therefore decided to work from home, was of course the day with the thunderstorm. Judging from the strength and closeness of the lightning, I knew that it was just a matter of time before the power tripped.

Sure enough, it did. 3 bloody times. My house has tinted windows, so during the heavy rain where all the windows are shut, my house is really dark. So having no power doesn't help me when I have to walk from my room, all the way downstairs to reset the power. With only my mobile as my 'torch' I made trip no 4 back to the fuse box. Where was the dog in all of these? Was she protecting me? No. The coward was hiding in her house, just a bit soggy from the rain. So when the power tripped for the 4th time and the circuit breaker didn't stay put, I had a sinking feeling. Crap. Was I going to spend the next couple of hrs in the dark?

I called my dad and his suggession? To turn off each power outlet and to slowly turn it back on to see which was the problematic one. Problem with that? It meant that I had to run up and down numerous times. IN THE DARK... So that got vetoed. Finally, he told me to turn off all the switches in the fuse box and slowly turned it back on to determine which was the problem. See, why didn't he tell me that in the first place?

Anyway turns out, the lightning busted the fridge. Yes, probably the 2nd most impt thing in the house. We tried to migrate the essentials to the other one in the backyard but really, most of the items were going to be trashed.

So later that night when I came down, I saw my dad huddled at the fridge. You know what he was doing? Saving his wine??? He was so excited to see me and told me to grab a few bottles to move them into the other fridge. I guess that's where all my prized bottles ended up. In his stomach. So now that the fridge got fixed and we're expecting another to arrive shortly, I guess it just means more space for his precious wines. Can you say alcoholic? ®

It's been almost a year that I've been in my current job. For some reason, people around me keep asking if I'm still at the same job. Yes, I am. I still like it, so I'll stick with it until I no longer do. But the thing is, when I first came in, the department and where I was sitting was positively bustling. Now? With exit after exit, it's really beginning to become really quiet. And I have a feeling that yet more will start to leave.

But I guess that's not my concern. It's a part of life that I have to just accept. From what I see, I think the department is due for an overhaul. I think it's either that the corporate culture is lacking something, or after some time, things get really stale. But I guess, dealing with it my way means that I remain detached.

Last week, we had yet another farewell dinner. Location of choice was a cosy chill out spot a little out of the way. It was ridiculously packed and they didn't take reservations for fridays. But when we finally got seats, it was worth it. The seats that we got were by the full length windows and we were just slouched into comfy sofas. But by the time we got seated, we were also starving. So being informed by the staff that being seated where we were didn't cater for actual dinner but we had to eat finger food wasn't the best news of the night.

So the straving people just ordered a crazy amount of finger food. I'm positive I have never seen so much finger food on the table ever. Put those with elegant glasses that our cocktails came in just made it such a contrast.

However, in the end, the bulk of the crowd didn't quiet make it and so we called it an early night as compared to the last farewell that was a boozy affair on a week night. It would have been good if we swapped the events.

Who says we don't have a life? ®