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To welcome our new colleague, K, to the department, our Big Boss (BB) took the whole group of us out for lunch. Now, as expected, lunch with the BB is quite scary cause you really don’t want to slip up if you get asked anything. But surprisingly, this lunch was pretty relaxed and BB was quite chatty, telling us about her plans for our team, and giving us an insight to her working style and her personality. And despite us having to give a synopsis of our personal interests (yes, it was a go round the table thing…), I quite enjoyed this lunch. And one thing BB mentioned during lunch that really stuck…you are loyal to the people you work for and the people you work with, not the organization. How true. It is my immediate boss and my colleagues that have kept me going in this job…it’s the camaraderie between our team that makes the job fun and makes waking up in the morning a tad bit easier. And it looks like this year will prove to be an interesting and challenging one…considering the task we have lying ahead…!!

A university friend of mine, L, just emailed me today! She has just set up her own website…am looking forward to browsing through it once I’ve finished this post.

OK…things on my to-write list today:

The Five People You Meet In Heaven….this book is a MUST READ. MUST! The writing style is simple, the story is simple…but it just touches the heart so deeply and when I finished the last page, I (truly, honestly) just sat there…thinking through the whole story and…just thinking. It’s not one of those long preachy stories. Again, a simply amazing book. I can’t review it without giving away the story, but here’s the review and synopsis from Amazon.com:

Part melodrama and part parable, Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces Eddie’s world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie’s birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life (a la A Christmas Carol). Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie’s own in ways he never suspected. Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to share. Through them Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his arrival brings closure to theirs.

Albom takes a big risk with the novel; such a story can easily veer into the saccharine and preachy, and this one does in moments. But, for the most part, Albom’s telling remains poignant and is occasionally profound. Even with its flaws, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a small, pure, and simple book that will find good company on a shelf next to It’s A Wonderful Life. –Patrick O’Kelley”

From the author of the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, a novel that explores the unexpected connections of our lives, and the idea that heaven is more than a place; it’s an answer.

Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It’s a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie’s five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his “meaningless” life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: “Why was I here?”

If you haven’t picked up a book since the new year, this has really got to be your first book for 2005. Honest. 9.5/10. Easily.

An old school-mate, BY, stopped by our place last night to pass us his wedding card…and boy…this card takes the ‘most creative card’ award. Kudos to the couple for choosing such an unconventional card. Take a look:

Above: Step 1 - unfold it

Above: Step 2 - pop up the bride and groom!

Above: Step 3 - fold along the lines! Ta da! =)

The final episode for season one of The 4400 was aired over Astro last night (it’s actually a repeat) and as expected, it kinda leaves the viewers hanging…what are these people here for? Looks like we’ll all have to wait till season two…!

Also managed to catch the ending of the first episode of The Apprentice 2 on TV3 last night…was surprised that TV3 actually beat Astro to airing it!

Morning sky looked so nice that I couldn’t resist taking a few snaps before changing and rushing off to work. My whole body was aching though…thanks to yesterday morning’s yoga plus 60-odd balls at the driving range last night…yeee-ouch.

Above: KLCC at dawn…still covered by mist (mist and not smog, I hope!)

Above: the sunlight starting to filter through…

Oh yeah…resolved my yoga class problem. We dropped by at the yoga centre after work today and was told that the dateline has been extended to 31 March 2005 and if we can’t finish by then, we’ll be allowed to convert the remaining classes in to massage sessions. Furthermore, the classes are now one and a half hours (god help us!!) so we instead of about 17 one hour classes, we now only have to attend 11 one and half hour ones. Plus, the new studio is now offering Capoeira, so maybe I’ll get a chance to tick off one more item on my ‘to-learn’ list!

Anyways, we wandered around Plaza Damas searching for a place to eat after resolving the yoga class thingy and we stumbled across this little cafe called Bistretto. And I think hubby might have finally found his ice-cream place in KL (there was a really nice one in Ipoh, but it closed down…)! =) The cafe serves Italian food…spaghetti, pizza, Tiramisu, etc….but seeing ice-cream on the menu was truly a surprise! I tried the bruschetta, as usual….and the one served here was quite different. No fresh tomatoes and basil on top. Instead, it was more of a tomato paste-y thing. Didn’t look all too appetizing at first…but it tasted surprisingly good. The bread was well toasted, but not to the point of burnt charcoal and it was quite chewy. Not too bad! The ice-cream was great…good end to the meal! It was probably Walls or Nestle or something (I usually don’t take those cause it’s not creamy enough), but it went well with the chocolate sauce, bananas and peanuts. One scoop was more than enough for me but Eric had three!!!

A full stomach and eyes tearing from yawning too much….that about ends my first working day of the second week of 2005. Nites!