being rinnah

Got caught in a massive traffic jam on the way to work today. Talk about receiving a dose of reality check upon coming back from holiday! I don’t recall any traffic jams at all in Indonesia, save for a short stretch in Medan that was undergoing roadworks.

Just a mere 1 ½ days off work and suddenly it seems that the paperwork has started to flow in an unending stream onto my desk. But it’s not unmanageable as yet. Still, the bulk is enough to make me bring back my work laptop so that I can do a little bit of drafting at home in small bites when I feel like it in between sorting out my holiday photos. Actually, I’m typing these words right now on my work laptop whilst sitting in that aforementioned traffic jam. Yesh, I am woman = I multitask. Lawl. (Oh, and two different uncles in lorries / vans have given me strange looks already. Maybe it’s because they’ve never seen laptops before? Haha.)

The other unmentioned reason why I brought my laptop home is because I had a report to finish for my boss but the symptoms of the post travel bug caught up with me on the second day I came back. I blame it on the delayed flight back home which resulted in me arrived back at 4.30am on Sunday night. Dozed for about 3 hours before I went in to the office and surprisingly, I felt alright on Monday! Guess the sleep deficit caught up with me on Tuesday because my body just crashed. Fever, chills, intense bodyache, sore throat… all happened at the same time and within the space of the hour before lunch, I was feeling as sick as a dog. Not literally la.

To add insult to injury, just before I fell sick, one of my high heels decided to separate itself from the shoe so I had to fork out my rapidly dwindling cash stash to buy a pair of temporary heels so that I didn’t hobble around. Bah. Oh, and not to mention that I forgot to bring my purse to office on Monday, which resulted in me walking around with just 70 cents in an empty purse which held just my IC and drivers license?

Aitelyu, it’s like everything happens at the same time.

I know I’ve said it before, but I can’t help but to say it again. I love school holidays! Even though I’m no longer schooling. Hurhurhur. Traffic was a breeze this morning compared to normal days, and I was so confident about the route to work that I took my sweet time to get ready and left the house a full twenty minutes later than normal. And I still got to work on time. *grin*

The highlight of the morning had to be the news that Zakaria Deros had passed away. I’m not one to find enjoyment over someone else’s demise, but it was just the… timing of the matter. Barely two days after the astonishing results of the 12th Malaysian Election. Geddit? LOL.

In one week’s time I’m going on my first ever overseas trip that involves flying. Yes, I’m such a dungu, I know. Everyone has been giving tons of advice and I don’t know which one to listen to. And my type-A personality has been running around putting together checklists, itineraries, emergency numbers, buying last minute stuff, etc etc etc. Somehow, I feel safer having taken all these precautions, unlike my laissez faire tripmates, who have basically left everything to me. I’m not complaining. No, I’m not. Truly. I just can’t find it in me to “wing it” in a foreign country that is completely alien to me.

I have no idea why I decided to create this huge electronic database for my department. It involves wading through file after file of old correspondence, scanning it, making sense of it and properly labeling and indexing it in the database, complete with hyperlinks in a searchable document file. I think I am too much type-A for my own good.

Oh, what a day to fall sick! I woke on Thursday morning feeling chilly all over even though my Mum said I looked flushed. Add to that a scratchy throat, a runny nose and intermittent body aches and I knew I was just about at the edge of falling sick. I didn’t want to push myself, so I took my time getting ready and heading off to work - arriving ten minutes late. In the LRT I could hear others sniffling away and when I got in to the office, lo and behold, the girl sitting next to me was also sniffling! Now we’re wondering who gave the bug to whom.

I guess I didn’t help matters much by going out for lunch in a light drizzle because the runny nose just wouldn’t quit. It just kept up with that irritating drip all day and all night long. I had to go to KLCC with McDee after work to get ourselves to register for some high tech iVEST card for work purposes, after which I hung out (alone!) for a while to go window shopping. Of course, being the shopoholic that I am, I managed to snap up a bargain at Isetan in just 15 minutes. Lawl. Then it was another short walk in a heavy drizzle to my old office to pick up my last month’s payslip and another walk in the never-ending rain to Shangri-La hotel for a departmental dinner with the Deputy CEO at Zipangu. Yes, I can finally say I’ve eaten real Japanese food at Zipangu. It was soooo good. Now I have one less name on my wishlist of places to eat at. Heh.

Due to all the exertion and rain-walking yesterday, I woke up with a stuffy nose and an equally stuffed head and was too dizzy / tired to consider going in to work. So I took an MC lor.

I so did not want to go to work today. Having had a somewhat sleepless night meant that I was ready to curl up under the comforter instead of wake up to the harsh light of day. I don’t know why but my sleep has been kind of interrupted lately. It’s when you get the feeling that your body is at rest, but the mind is still actively awake. It just makes one feel unrested even though technically you’ve been ‘asleep’ for seven or more hours. *sigh* Anyway, there’ll be plenty of time to catch up on lost sleep in the coming days when I’m on leave. I’m not complaining. *wink*

Felt the working blahs as I hauled myself to work and met a bad traffic jam that caused me to be late for work once again. Traffic in KL just seems to be getting worse and worse each day. But I made myself much happier when I donned a new-ish pair of heels to match my skirt. Nothing like pretty / sexy shoes to make a female happy, yea? The guilt from the shoe overdose at the recent sales pricked my conscience slightly, but hey, they were a bargain, so banish the thought. LOL!

Plans for a midweek holiday to Penang before the Deepavali holiday fizzled out with nary a peep after Dad’s company mentioned that there was an upcoming project that would take other senior consultants out of the country. It always seems that planned holidays will never take-off but spontaneous ones could happen.

Rinnah played both tourist and tourist guide on Friday. *grin* The day started out splendidly with a chocolate milk and cheese biscuits breakfast before we whizzed down to KL city to collect aunt and uncle from UK. (Yes, THAT aunt and uncle, who are actually lovely souls to be around cos’ they’re so sporting and funny.) I didn’t know that so many people used the SMART tunnel on an actual working day. Picked them up from Hotel Istana before we headed down to Putrajaya for some sightseeing. They were mostly impressed with our administrative capital as we rounded the area before stopping at the Taman Botani to walk around. Ha, I had a swell time playing amateur photobug and merrily clicking away whenever I saw anything interesting. The weather was mostly cooperative as it wasn’t too hot and there was a breeze most of the time.

Plans to take Uncle to sightsee at the Sepang F1 circuit (because he’s a racing fan) fizzled out because another uncle called for lunch and we went over to Puchong for some yummy yong tau foo that was bursting at every seam with fish paste. I’ve never eaten such *stuffed* yong tau foo before in my life.

Then we headed over to yet another uncle’s house for a spot of karaoke and a sit-down Chinese dinner in Sungai Buloh at which I made my parents kembang with pride when I paid for it without the knowledge of my uncle. You see, the family has this tradition of fighting over who gets to pay the bill. It’s an Asian thing - even my aunt from UK tries to fight for the bill too. So I just snuck off (on the pretext of heading to the toilet) and paid. There, settled and no fight. They can’t fight with me for the bill because I was the youngest person there. *grin*

The night ended when we sent aunt and uncle back to Hotel Istana so they could pack for their flight tomorrow. We should be seeing them again in August next year - maybe there’ll be a day out like this one too!