When I Saw an Old Picture of my Crush....

 Whoaa….. I saw a picture of my crush few weeks back, and it was an old picture. The picture was taken somewhere in the early 80’s, and it was taken in ITM or now famously known as UiTM.

You might be wondering how on earth I managed to get hold of this picture. Well someone from my batch were kind enough to upload his collection of pictures during his college days.

I was looking through the picture one by one when this particular picture and one particular person caught my eyes. Caught my eyes only… Nothing extraordinary happened. My heartbeat still beat at the same pace. The only thing happened when I saw that picture was it brought back some of the memories…. Angau time I called it.

What happened to him after college? I don’t know. But I guess he must have gotten married and with few kids. Heh! Who knows, he might be a grandpa already. Hehe… I might be wrong, but didn’t that normally what people do? Graduated, get married, have kids, and the cycle goes on. Well whatever it is, I wish him all the best.

So here is the picture and you may guess which one is my crush. Haha.. Few of them tried but failed to guess it correctly. Do you want to try? Be my guess….

Gonna Miss Them

Who will I miss most now that I’m no more the resident of the level six? Will it be my boss? Nah… he is just one of the guys.

What about my team? Yeah… I will surely miss them.. They are a bunch of good girls. Let see who they are.

Suja, my sidekick, who has been with me through thick and thin, who together swim, drown and float with me during the early days of outsourcing, who struggled together to understand those $$ signed and making a sensible report out of it.

Yeah…I have to say that our relationship is not only as a boss and staff but also as a friend. Sitting next to each other gave us lots of opportunity to gossip, and one thing that I’m going to miss most is teasing her.

Emma, Inez, and Julia are the other three ladies who I’m gonna miss too. Haha…they must be relieved now. No more tapauing for Zai. Actually, these young girls are my teachers. Whenever there are new jargons, they will be my reference point. Occasionally, they are my partners to discuss on the novels that we shared.

I’m gonna miss Kit, or sometimes when I’m in a teasing mood, I called him Kit Kat. He is the tallest guy on the sixth floor. There were a lot of things that we shared, mostly like kakak and adik. Whenever something bothers him, he will squat down between Suja and me. I knew then that he had something on his mind. We are basically a team. We can gang up and tease Inez and Suja at a click of our fingers. Same wavelengths when it comes to teasing. Ohhhh… how I’m gonna miss those moments.

I’m gonna miss the rest of the CCG teams too. Chris and his finance team are the busiest team. Always huddled together to look at the figure, and if not lucky all three will be sitting around the big boss table.

The contract team, Daniel, Anne and Ivan, is the quietest among the three groups. They daily activities are to read through the contracts or deals with things pertaining to contracts. They will sit and stared at the contracts and will only get up whenever there is something to discuss.

The noisiest team among the three is my team. Sourcing team or Girl Power, where we deal with vendors for quotation and other related sourcing activities. Haha there were times you can hear Inez screaming and shouting at someone over the phone. Hope she will tone down later. Don’t want her stress level to go up.

Others that I’m gonna miss is Mei Khuen and Wan. They are my basically my lunch buddies whenever my BFF not around or whenever times permit. I’m gonna miss our lunch at the break out area where we shared one story after another.

But one person that I’m going to miss most is Yati, My BFF. We shared a lot and discussed our life, our faith, our kids, hubbies, and families and of course about works. With Yati, it will always be a serious discussion, looking for some solution or advise. Our friendships will not stop here. We can always interact through phones and other media.

Also, I’m going to miss the people on the sixth and fifth floor. Even though I do not have any close interaction with some of them, but the spirit as one ISD is there. You have shown it during the teambuilding. Keep up the spirit and raise to challenge, my fellow ISDians…

Special gift from special friend

Look at what I have here with me? Isn’t it beautiful? Yes, it’s a gift from my dear friend, BP, for my house warming party last week.

She wanted to come, but she had a major crisis that she needed to attend to. Ahhh…not personal crisis, but system related crisis. Such an important person she is.

She was really looking forward to the party.  In fact, she and her girls were ready to leave the house when she received a call from her staff about the problem. Well, BP next time. Insya Allah.

What do you think the vase is made from? Clay? Nope. You are wrong. When I first saw it, I thought the same, but when I held it, it was very light. Lynda, who was with us, was also surprised when BP told us that it was made from wood.

Now I need to find a place for this beautiful vase. I been thinking of putting it on the coffee table, but I’m scared my kids would use it to keep all the trash in there. So, where do you think I should put it?

Whenever my friend says goodbye.....

Ahhh…One by one, my friend resigned. Some found a job somewhere else and some just quit. Life is stressful here, but life must go on.

Most of these people who left have been with the company for many years. Some were longer than me. What made them leave? Not sure but they must have their own reasons.

Eventhough people leaving, one thing for sure and agreed by many, the company has been good to us. It is one of the best companies to work with. No doubt about it.

One of them who is leaving is my colleague, Chee Leong. He will be leaving by the end of the month. I’m going to miss him. So yesterday the three of us, my department is very small, we went for lunch yesterday. When we sat at the table, I am proud to say that we are multicultural, multiracial and multi-language group. The team is made up of Malay, Chinese and Indian. Muhibbah and 1Malaysia!

We had lunch at Chili Expresso, Sooka Sentral. We sat outside, underneath the canopy, and the weather was very nice. Not too hot and not too cold. It was just nice so that we can enjoy our last week together as a team. As we were about to sit, Chee Leong said, “Ahh …It’s like Paris.”

We had a long lunch, and we talked about everything except work. Every time we talked about work, it will spoil the mood, but we did gossip about what happened in the office.

And today, I attended another farewell lunch, together with other five others, but this time it was for my friend, Barry. We worked together in Jakarta. His last day will be this week, and he is taking a month break before starting at his new company.

Who else is leaving? Not sure but hope no one that I know. Every time they say goodbye, a piece of me die with them. That’s how I feel.

To Barry, all the best and enjoy your break.

Sekian ….Salam.

Real Friends are Hard to Find

Last Monday, my friend, Balqis MZ came over to my house to drop me a piece of cake and a book. Her daughter won the cake from the contest in the FB. The cake was delicious.

Balqis is a writer. She gave me one of her book titled ‘Sekuntum Mawar untuk Adikku’, and it was a book on Islam. I told her that I wanted to read and review the book, but I haven’t gotten time to read it yet. Insyallah, I will read it soon.

She signed the book and wrote ‘To Zai, my dorm mate yang blues’. That words ‘blues’ brought happy memories during my day in college. Heh! Balqis and I were two rugged chic during our college days. We were closed from first semester, but she changed in the final semester. From jeans loving person she changed to tudung (hijab). I was somewhat lost for a while with her drastic changed. Until today, I still didn’t know what triggered her sudden changed, and I will not ask.

We lost contact for many years, but I bumped into her when I was pregnant with my first child. We lost contact again until Facebook connected us back last year. She is now a successful children book writer, and her book carries Islamic message. The book is extremely easy to understand especially for kids.

Oh! And she just told me that she has another book coming out soon. Congratulations and I wish Balqis a successful career in writing and in spreading her message of Islam through her writing. Insyallah..

Salam.

Thank You,

I'm going to share with you some of the gifts that I received from my friends. Yup, whenever someone travel, there will be some 'ole-ole' that they will bring back to office. The most common one, is chocolate.

You see the little flower below. Well that one I received it from Amir when he was in standard 1 for Mother’s Day. Together with this little gift, he gave me RM2.00. I was surprised to receive the gifts because I didn't expect him to remember mother's day. I have been keeping this in the office for the past five years. As for the money, I still have it in my purse. It was so sweet of him to give the RM2.00 especially that money was meant for him to use during his recess. 

I also received gifts from my friends whenever they went for vacations or business trips. Here a fan from China that I received in 2008 from my BFF. She was away on business trips. When it is warm in the office, I will use this to fan myself. Very handy!  Next to the fan is the drawing from Bali. I received this from my staff when she went there on vacation with her family.

Next is series of small gifts that I have received. A bangle made from wood was given to me by my colleague, who is sitting near me in the office when she visited Sarawak. There is also a pen 'I LOVE LONDON' from my boss who was stranded in London during the snowstorms last year in December, a key chain from my friend in Melbourne who came back for vacation and a koala bear from office colleague who went to Perth in 2009.

And below is a shawl from India that I received from my BFF, who was sent to India on work assignment. Like the fan from China, the shawl is also very handy when the office air-condition is too cold.  

I value each and every one of them and also those I kept at home. It not about how expensive is the item or how big it is but the most important thing is the gift is from someone that close to me and I value their friendships. To all my friends, thank you for being my friends!


Sekian...salam.