Sigh! I’ve been really really busy lately. My task list has been growing day after day, with 1 now is 6 days overdue already. Need to revised the due date for that then.

Help! I’m drowing here….

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Finally, it’s the final day of the training. And here are the survivors that endure the 5 days course of the training.

Going back to KL tomorrow. So I guess it’s goodbye to Bangkok.

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It’s 4th day of the training. I moved to a new topic today – which is tabulation. Things went pretty well, which I finished presenting all the topics for the day rather quick. The same as the previous days, let’s not talk about work here. Let’s talk about food instead.

After lunch, we did pass this.

It turned out that he’s selling coconut ice-cream. So Saaree, the DP Manager here treats me to coconut ice-cream.

Yummy. Guess how much this costs? It’s THB20. That’s around RM2.07. Pretty cheap.

Finding food here is not a problem at all. If I fancy Thai food, there’s this Muslim restaurant just around the corner. That time, when I was there, there are these 2 gentlemen from Malaysia having lunch there too. The thing about Malaysians when we met abroad, we never talk to each other. Been noticing that long time ago every time I met Malaysian whenever I travel. LOL

Anyway in Thailand, owning a C-Band satellite dish is legal here. I saw plenty on the roof of building here, which were installed privately. With this, you will be able to receive free satellite TV programs from all over the world.

It’s illegal to install one in Malaysia. If Water and Communications Ministry knows that you have one, they will come to knock it down. So I guess we will just have to stick to KU-Band satellite dish that Astro is using, which suffers a severe rain fade problem. Sigh!

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There’s actually no training today, as it’s a public Holiday for Thailand due to H.M. Queen’s Birthday, which also marks the Mother’s Day in Thailand. To start off the morning, I take longer breakfast today, and I’ve been trying this almost every morning – very sweet special “Thai Mango” or locals called “Ma-muang Nam Dok Mai”.

I just feel so lazy today, and just decided to stay at hotel, resting. What’s good is, this hotel has a selection of movies that you can rent for free. I can borrow 2 movies every time, and once finished watching, I can return it, and borrow 2 more movies.

As a start, I borrow Ghost and Resident Evil Extinction. Ghost is very classic and really love the story.

Hey, they have Akademi Fantasia in Thailand too, and they are at season 6.

It feels so good resting all day long today.

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It’s the end of the second day of training. So Sastra is bringing me around Bangkok again tonight, this time to the central of Bangkok. Traffic here is as bad as Malaysia after office hour, so cab is not a good option. BTS SkyTrain here is the choice, and it’s really really packed after office hour.

So here’s the stop for tonight, Siam station.

And there’s this long Sky Walk, connecting several shopping complexes around this area. It’s called Sky Walk as this is an elevated pathway for pedestrian. A good concept though as we won’t be bother with massive traffic below. Love to see we have this at Bukit Bintang area.

So my destination is Central World Plaze. Phew. It’s 10 mins walk on the Sky Walk from Siam station. There’s this cultural show at their concourse, so I spent about 15 mins there watching it.

Then I walked the are for about 1 hour or so, then I’m headed back to hotel. Kinda tired.

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It’s time to travel again. I’m kinda excited this time as I will be going to Bangkok. This is the first I will be there, but not the first time that I’ve been to Thailand. Been to Phuket 2 years ago, and living in Pasir Mas Kelantan, where Rantau Panjang is so near (border between Malaysia and Thailand), I’ve been to Sungai Golok already too.

The pressure is different this time, as I will be the trainer. Even though I’ve done the same training quite a number of times before, but preparing for this is quite a tiresome. Well, that’s my flight to Bangkok, ready for boarding.

Most Of the time, the very first person that you will have interaction with outside the airport is the taxi driver. The one that bring me to the city is too friendly. Contrary to what people like, I like my taxi driver is a quite one. I’m very shy you see, and usually just don’t know have much too say, especially with stranger that I met for the first time.

As as many of the airport, you will pass thorough the road that have the view of the city that you will be visiting.

I guess the taxi driver is custom to receiving visitors from Malaysia. He knows that I’m Malay and I’m Muslim. As we passed this mosque, he said that there are several mosques in Bangkok.

Finally, I reached the hotel, and the fare is THB500. Well, from what I read, the fare from airport to the city using meter is usually around THB200 to THB300. Obviously, this taxi driver is not using meter. Well, I don’t complain, as I can always claim later. LOL.

I’m staying at Triple Two Silom Hotel on the Silom Soi 18. Things are quite nice here as Silom Road is very famous around tourist. Let look at what they have in the hotel room.

		King size bed
		Lounge sofa
		Work area
		Bath room
		Toiletries
		Hand soap
		Bath tub
		Mini bar
		Storage room

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I was browsing and reading my twitter page earlier today, where I quite shock to see one entry made by my company’s twitter which has reference to me. At first I thought I see it wrong. But after I click the link – yes, the photo at that link was indeed taken by me when I published this entry.

Come to think of it, it’s quite scary to think that more people at work know the existence of my blog.

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Below are the unplanned leaves (Emergency Leave and Sick Leave) that I took for the last month, until this week. Looks pretty bad huh. But trust me, all of those taken due to my health problem.

Anyway, as a matter of fact, I just got out from the meeting with my boss and my HR Manager scrutinizing me of such a bad pattern.

Well, I do understand their motive. Professionally thinking, this is the session where I can discuss things that bothering me at work, or my motivation at work has fallen, or I’m facing any health issue, etc, and find ways to solve that.

But, I’m also just another human being, that would feel discontented when people start to analyze and judging you.

And boy I keep thinking what is the thing that makes me deserve this kind of treatment after what I’ve done. I sacrifice not to take leave on the very perfect time for this during CNY (i.e take only 3 days leave, and you get leave 10 days in a row – plus Federal Teritory Day) since all of the programmers were on leave this time, and I want to be around to support any unforeseen things.

But hey, how I learn that people won’t even notice you when you are behaving good, but start to put a spotlight on you when you’ve done just a little mistake.

But don’t worry, my professional sense is stronger in this case.

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Today marks the 6th year Synovate is around. This company in Malaysia has been around for 11 years already, with the name of Asia Market Intelligence (AMI) prior re-branded to Synovate.

So this year in Malaysia, we celebrate this company’s birthday with lots and lots of cupcakes. Yummy!

I myself ate 6 of those. LOL.

HAPPY 6TH BIRTHDAY SYNOVATE!

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Eight more days, and we will be leaving 2008. But it seems that 2008 doesn’t want to leave me that easy. Been really busy these few weeks with so many things that I need to settle before I stepping into the new year.

The 2008 Performance Management Process (PMP) was due on 17th December, and this is also the time where project volumes reaching it’s peak. I have to finish up my own PMP, as well as doing the PMP to 3 of my staffs. Overall, my PMP went well. I’m excel in certain areas, but tend to neglect other certains area. Well, I’m just a human being which cannot run away from imperfection.

The Dimensions Level II Certification Test, that I owe to all of the 10 programmers for 3 weeks already needs to be done pretty soon. So on I fine Saturday, all of the programmers are forced to come to office to take this test. All of them are very serious taking this test.

And what’s next, marking their test. Got to finish this before the new year. That sounds like a lot of work to do. LOL.

But I guess the thing that worries me so is Wendy leaving Malaysia for good back to Guangzhou, and then to Australia next year. To talk about Wendy needs an entry of its own.

I first met her back in March, as an effort to set up a preferred partner team there. Well I have to say the team there matured very fast and pretty well, where we need her help to help our team here in Malaysia. I’ve been wearing so many caps for so long, which has to stop, concentrating on the technical development area, which leave the team here yearning for support. That’s where Wendy came for help.

Well, someone has a brilliant idea by throwing a farewell party to her, together with 2 other members which resigning very soon. Even though not everyone can turn up due to work, but things that always impress me is that the gathering of my team members is always a happening one.

Cheers. All the best to Wendy, Arif and Amir, and all the best to all of us as well.

Ladies! No fighting please. We are having so much fun here and I don’t want to see blood spilling over the table.

And due to that incident, all knives and forks are kept well guarded from Zuhaida and Elina. LOL

Today, when reaching office, I saw this Christmas present from Wendy to me.

Once home, I unwrap the parcel,

and inside is this amazing cube that can use used as clock, calendar, alarm and themometer.

Thanks Wendy. And it’s rather shame that I don’t have anything to give her back. Today is just too hectic, with me being on MC yesterday. Today, I spend most of the time attending lots of emails that are claiming a piece of my soul.

I know a few of my team will read this entry. I hope you all not to worry of Wendy leaving. With her good guidance all this while, we have numbers and figures that show how much the team here has improved from the first time that we start. It is just a little bit more, and we will have a mature team. Keep up the good work!

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