Uphill Battle

Feb 122010

It will be an uphill battle for me to maintain my current weight during this festive season.

This morning, my Naked Body Mass check revealed that I am 64.3 kg in weight. It has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride for my body mass these past few days; “pasar malam” didn’t help much with all the treadmill and circuit training that I have laboured myself into.

The interesting fact is that I wrote this piece from my hometown in Kuantan. It is a wonder for me to take one day off and get in return 5-days holiday. My company was grateful enough to give us all replacement holidays on Tuesday since Chinese New Year falls on Sunday and Monday.

So what’s the relationship between my weight and me being in my hometown? The answer is: good home-made food. Nothing can beat your mom’s cooking, or your dad’s culinary skills. The foods that they prepared fore you are just begging for you to throw out your diet regime out of the window.

It will be interesting to see how many kilos that I will gain after I came back from this long holiday. :)

This Final Time You Leave Your Post

Feb 092010

Today is the last day that Tan Sri Hassan Merican is the CEO and acting Chairman of PETRONAS.

Like everything that’s great, it will come to an end eventually. His 21 years in PETRONAS, with 15 years as the CEO, has been great for PETRONAS. The company changed from a local champion into a multinational group of companies, operating in 34 countries (last personal count) and growing. His contributions to the company are too many for me to list it here; but suffice to say that the PETRONAS Twin Tower – proudly standing at the heart of Kuala Lumpur – is a testimony of all the sums of the achievements that the company has gone through.

Many of us in the company are sad with his departure. There’s abundance of praise and good words of him that were uttered in the corridor, in smoking breaks, during meetings and discussions, etc. Even in my division, we have came up with a token of goodwill for him to remember us – given that we are of the few HCUs that reported directly to him.

Initially I was asked by a manager in my division to write a poem for this sad occasion, so that it will be included in the division’s farewell card. I was sceptical that I could even came with an idea to kick start this assignment. Well, I can’t just ask for the goddess of creativity to bestow her magic on me by request.

Somehow, with my copy-and-paste and alteration skills, I have somehow came up with a poem for his departure, based on an existing poem on the net. No originality here, I admitted it to the manager when I gave this poem to him. But then due to some unforeseen circumstances (that I rather not elaborate since I’m a party to this incident) he has decided not to use this poem.

Oh well, I could have just print it out and send it to TSP (as we all fondly called Tan Sri) as a farewell note – they opened a box at level 70 for staff to do so. But I must admit that I’m not that up to the beat on this. so I guess I just post this poem here, for all to read – and hope that it will be a good farewell to him.

This final time you leave your post
GIA staff here would like to boast:
We’ve wished you the best
happy life, relaxing with your wife
and family;
While we continue here, in our daily work
engrossed, for the country.

Looking into the future
From the tallest twin tower
of PETRONAS in the international arena
we can’t stop but remember
since 1989 that you have been here
and that made all the difference.

And with that
Let us together toast
You
Our dear friend and boss.

Post-edit: I went down to the farewell walk that was unofficially coordinated by the Corporate Affairs people (I guess), where many staff were standing on the sides of his path as he slowly came down from his office to his car. Many got to shake his hands (including yours truly!), some were openly weeping, while others were thanking him for all that he has done for the company.

It will be a new day for PETRONAS tomorrow, but we will never forget TSP’s contribution and foundation that he has laid down well for the company.

There is no Cure for Dengue

Feb 082010

Dengue fever is a disease caused by one of a number of viruses that are carried by mosquitoes. These mosquitoes then transmit the virus to humans. There is no treatment available to shorten the course of dengue fever.

I came back from visiting my officemate at Ampang Puteri hospital this afternoon. He was admitted to the hospital after what was thought as a mild fever turned into severe symptoms – high temperature, whole body ache, and uncontrollable body shaking, among others. With his blood pallets count dropped considerably for the past few days, the signs are clearly indicating that he might be ill with dengue.

It is scary to think that a small mosquito could have caused such a dangerous virus infection. It could not be helped that our equatorial weather with it’s abundance of rain is the perfect setup for mosquito breeding ground. Lots of other factors contributed further to the increase of dengue cases in Malaysia. While we cannot completely eradicate the problem, we could pro-actively take actions that could limit the spread of the disease, by ensuring that there are no mosquito breeding grounds near our vicinity, for example.

I do hope he will get well soon. It is sad to see a very cheerful person that I’ve known to be on the hospital bed, in agony and pain from the sickness that he never asked for.

Glee, Completed!

Feb 072010

“By it’s very definition, Glee is about opening yourself up to joy”.

I have completed a marathon on the first season of Glee. What was the initial target of only watching episode 5 on Sunday night turned into a straight non-stop visualisation of popular songs and awesome dances with cool themes and abundance of moral take-aways. Overall, I cannot express in clarity of my enjoyment in watching Glee!

I have heard that many people compared this to High School Musical (HSM). I must admit that the similarity of musical-themes and of high school setup does make it worth being compared to one another. But the differences are huge as well, and we can see that even at the cast selection. The diversity in Glee is apparent. So, the majority has spokenth: Glee is far better than HSM. And I concur.

Now I’m trying my best to poison the minds of many with Glee. And waiting in agony of the next season, if there’s any. :)

Post-edit: Apparently there’s more then meet the eyes. I’ve watched up until episode 13, but season 1 is until episode 22 – 9 more episodes will be aired come March 2010 onwards. Can’t wait! And they have confirmed that there’s season 2 on the slate. :D

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