News from North, and South

Mom had her first fever of the year, was talking with her over the phone just now. Most probable reason for her sickness is infection from little sister because she has just got hers last week. Dad actually has informed me about her situation yesterday, but I didn’t really have the time to call her. She said that she complained about her body ache to dad the day earlier but didn’t suspect that it was a sign of fever. Later that night she had her sore throat so dad took her to clinic.

Big sis is 4 months old pregnant now, called her yesterday and she told me that her belly got a little bigger. She also told me about her craving for food and stuff and we talked about financial spending on food for family. It seems that we have the same problem on the matter since we are contributing our finances on household expenses especially on food. You see, I’m not really a big spender when it comes to grocery shopping. Only at times, I would buy stuff that I really want to have, and the stuff that I bought is enough to cater the whole pack for a week.

But it is unlikely here that sometimes I have to do twice weekly for grocery hunt just to fill the refrigerator and cabinet with food. And occasionally, the food proportion served was too much that the leftover was left on the table waited to be discarded. Big sis told me that if the food allocation is not enough for the whole week, she wouldn’t buy it until the new week started, just to teach them a lesson.

Called Lloyd this morning to ask him about the news from the clan. He said that he had been busy since last week with his traveling and family matters. I was told that he was attending his in-law funeral last weekend. I was surprised with the news and he told me that the incident leads to his death was posted on a local paper. Other than that, he is perfectly fine and said that he might going to pay me a visit sometime on March.

Growing up during hard time

Taking the right path of life isn’t easy as it seems. The complexity of mind usually became port that command, plan and make us act the way we should. Sometimes I wonder if the decision made were just according to the mind alone, or just a mere instinct of the heart. Human, do not build like a robot that only obeys command from a remote control or processor. After all, robots are build by human himself, using the thought that is gifted by God.

Why am I talking all this crap? I found that sometimes when we are trapped in a crossroad of life, where we are forced to make decision that we don’t even like. That really gets to my nerve. People said, ‘list out the pros and cons”, “ask second opinion”. Well, I did that; sometimes listing pages of pages of pros and cons doesn’t help. I’m not being pessimistic but that is the truth about life. Sometimes people that made us make that decision are just being self-centered that they only think of their personal interest. At the end, those who don’t really matters are the one who gets the pay. But have no regret, because I believe all the punishment of his afterlife will be greater than that of what he did to others.

My previous boss used to said, “We are considered mature enough when we have experienced the ups and down of life and the best time to experience that is when you are grown up during the hard times”. That was the last statement he told me before I left his unit. Now I understand what he meant, this is the time where all the hard times that will give a lesson for me to learn. I’m eager to do it, but I’m not that enthusiast about it. Because I know what lies ahead is far more greater than everyone could imagine

Expressing the thought

Can’t believe time is running fast, it’s been almost a month since I came to Kapit. Things been going well lately, work is fine and I wonder where’d my previous boss been. The last time I heard he was having gastric problem so he have to take a sick leave, but he didn’t inform me to take a week leave, it’s none of my concern anyway. 3 weeks of staying also indicates that it has been 3 weeks of being person-in-charge in the office where I work now. It’s funny in such a short time that I’ve been seeing all kind of scenario, office scenario to be exact, that I consider some of them hilarious while some are not.

SOME THINGS TO PONDER, AND A LESSON TO LEARN

Most of the time my job is just giving signature on paper, reporting to the manager besides monitoring the staff. Sound simple? Not as simple as you thought. Facing problems with the customers are common. In rare cases I’ve encountered not so long ago, I have to face the public and the higher authority, which I think a lesson worth to learn. And just a few days ago, on a rainy afternoon when I was doing some of my jobs, one of my staff was banging his fist on the table. I was informed that he was angry over a job that was delegated to him, which he has to redo it. The thing is; he is over a half-century old, about to retire, have kids and wife. Okay…duh…I believe when people gets older, they also get wiser. But in this case, “get dumb-er when you get older”- that is a thing worth to ponder…

BLAME IT ON THE WEATHERMAN

Okay, enough with office drama. The water level in Rejang River has been high since last week. The periodic raining not only has made the situation worse, it was said that some areas were affected by problems such as flood and landslide. I can say that this is the worse monsoon season I’ve been experience in my whole life. Kuching is also no better than Kapit, I was told that it’s been a gloomy days with raining on and off every single day since late December. Because of that, the price of market goods here in Kapit also hiked to as high as RM15-17 for a price of vegetables per kilos. The only option is to buy imported vegetable which is far cheaper.

THE WEEKEND PLAN

Back in Kuching, weekend was filled with shopping and late night outing. In contrary, there were not much of such activities to do here. The town is so small that it only took you less than half an hour visit. Shopping mall? Nope, there are no shopping mall and places to hang out here. The only thing you can do here is try to blend around with the people and make full use of the time to have fun. Owh, did I mention they have Sugarbun here? It’s not one of my favorite fast food restaurant but at least they have fast food restaurant franchise here.

Taking a break

First and foremost, I hope it’s not too late for me to wish a Happy Chinese New Year for those who are celebrating Chinese New Year. May the year of Ox bring prosperity and wealth to all. Last holiday also give me a chance to go back to town (Kuching) to settle some unfinished business. It was a hectic journey, went to Sibu via express boat in the afternoon and stayed at Sibu for a while. After that took a bus to Serian at 1.00am, because there was no more ticket available that was en route to Kuching.

The bus was supposedly depart at 11.00pm but due to a delayed journey from Bintulu, we have to wait for 2 hours before it finally arrive. That was not all of it, just before the bus was about to take off, there was a couple who quarrel with the bus driver demanding that the bus would take them to Kuching…(hello…didn’t they read the sign on the bus that says…Bintulu-Sibu-Tebedu). The event took about 15 minutes before we eventually take off to Serian.

The bus arrived at its destination (Serian) around 6.30 am. Cart’s father (a colleague of mine) fetch us at bus terminal and I had my transit at her house not far from Serian town before she drove me to Kuching and reached home around 9.00am in the morning.

There were not much things to do during the 3 days stay. Well, here is the list of things that I did during that 3 days stay.

Things that I manage to do:

• spending time with family
• meet Bryan and Leo
• hang out on Chinese new year eve at airport with friends

Things I didn’t manage to do:

• Meeting Loid and some people I consider needed to meet
• Open house visiting with old friends just like we used to do
• Go on shopping and spending few dime on clothes

Later that Tuesday, left Kuching at 5.00 am in the morning with my Atos and pick Cartrina up at mile 29th Serian road. The journey took us around 6 hours to reach Sibu, unfortunately we couldn’t catch up the express boat because we were late. So we spend the night at the nearest hotel and left Sibu as early as 5.45am and manage to reach office at 9.00 am.

New year, new resolution. New job, new position

*This post is a continuation from previous post entitled "Farewell..."

Change for good

Just when i was about to settle down with my job in Kuching, recent news has it that our new placement will be out soon. I was not surprise at all given that the rumors of organization restructuring have been carried out few months ago. So the previous turmoil and scenario have taken its effect finally.

On the positive side of the company, the restructuring is good because there are certain areas where it is lack of personnel and therefore creates a bottleneck work flow that indirectly affect the whole organization. In addition, some of the existing staff have no choice but multitask with their current job and extra jobs given by their superior.

On the contrary, those who are going to be absorb to the new department have to learn new things from the beginning. Even from the beginning of the year when I first came to my current position, i have to take at the least 1 month to adapt myself to the environment, plus another 3 months to familiarize myself with the work. I'm not whining due to the fact I can't adapt with the work and all. Being flexible in any case is what we are built for, if it's not then what was the training for, correct?

Where do we go from here?

If given a choice, I would love to be place in Bintulu. I was once deployed to Bintulu when I had my training over there. The reason is simple, I have love Similajau a lot eversince i first came to Bintulu. And I'd love to have a visit to the beach during weekend and sunbathe on the white sandy beach. Though there are not much of entertainment compared to Kuching, well at least I could dump in some of my dime to saving account.

Sibu and Miri? I love Sibu and Miri as much as other places, but I have always been to Sibu all this while. Likewise, the living cost in Miri can be quite high. And they don't call it "The City of Oil" with no reason.

Merry X'mas

Have a Blessed Christmas everyone!!

Farewell...

Goodbye southern, hello northern!