24 December 2012

Yesterday my family and I made an impromptu visit to Malacca. My in-laws went to a wedding in Muar and afterwards they stayed at a home stay in Bukit Beruang. I had a taste of the infamous Nilai-Seremban traffic jam yesterday. Traffic crawled for hours and it was so bad that I decided to turn around and take the Lekas highway instead. We still had a minor crawl in Seremban but is not as bad as along the PLUS highway. I can't imagine people going through this jam every other weekend.

My Papago app has never failed to show me the correct way to any place before but yesterday it directed me to Lubuk China when I was actually looking for Bukit Beruang. We got lost for an hour looking for the right way to the homestay. Moral of the story: trust your GPS but also ask for directions. The homestay house that we stayed was very nice and comfortable. It was a semi-d terrace house with 4 air-conditioned rooms, partly furnished kitchen, Astro in the living room and broadband Internet some more. And for just RM250 per night I would really recommend this place to everyone.

The next day, obviously since we're already in Malacca, we must visit some of the attractions there. Again we had to go through another hour of traffic jam just to get to the city center. Weekends and school holiday is a recipe for real headache in Malacca. Remind me not to come to Malacca during those two times again in the future.

Nevertheless we did made it to Banda Hilir and the ladies had some fun time shopping at Medan Samudera. This time I've known better than to park my car haphazardly and invite summons from traffic cop or city hall. I am yet to pay my last MBBM summons of four years ago and I have no intention of adding another one now. After lunch at the craft center we visited the Flor de lar mar replica ship. It was a huge ship but honestly there wasn't anything much to see except for a compressed version of Malacca's history. The ship doesn't even float on water. I wanted to see Jonker Walk next but my kids pestered me to go see A Famosa instead. I didnt really get to observe or enjoy much of the attractions there because I was too preoccupied with looking after those naughty little brats. I guess I'll have to come again next time when we have sent all of them to boarding school.

Traffic at night is only slightly better than during the day. The irony is we are probably part of the cause for these never-ending traffic jam in Malacca. Me and thousands other tourists who come to see this Unesco world heritage site. It's a mixed blessing I guess. On one hand these tourist are responsible for contributing income to the state coffers but on the other hand causes massive jams almost every weekend.

Malacca is very interesting and stuff but I really could do without the traffic jam.

12 December 2012

I woke up this morning to find the window to my car smashed to bits by an unknown assailant. He must be cursing his luck though because the most valuable item in my car is probably my stapler, which he left untouched. Although my car's window is covered by insurance, the hassle of going to the workshop to replace it and that awful feeling of being violated still suck. I hope you will realize that your line of work is heinous and change before it's too late. And to think that the same thing could happen again to any one of us who parks outside the gate. That suck too but c'est la vie.

In other news last week I went for an interview at Alice Smith School next door in Equine Park. Yes that elusive Alice Smith school that you see on signboards everywhere around town but you have no idea where it is or how it looks like. To be honest I applied for a job there via Jobstreet like 2 months ago so I was quite surprised when they call me up for an interview last week.

The interview went well. They asked me all sort of questions, technical, personal, analytical. At the end of it I got the feeling that it went quite well. They even said that I'm actually over-qualified for the job. But then again, I had that same feeling during that last interview I went to in Shah Alam. I didn't get that one though. So I guess when you got the same credentials and qualification it all boils down to luck sometimes. Some people may have a perfect 4.0 CGPA but they might lack experience. Some has an abundance of experience but they may lack communication skill like English. Everything else equal it might just depend on whether the interviewer likes you or not and how you present yourself during the interview.

I suppose the interviewer likes me or something because yesterday I got a call from Alice Smith school HR saying that they are delighted to offer me this IT guy post at their school in KL. You see, Alice Smith has one primary campus in Jalan Bellamy and another secondary campus here in Equine Park. Of course I'd wished that they could let me work here but I can be really demanding right about now right? So Jalan Bellamy it is. The pay is okay and I get to work with those beautiful little children. What more could I ask?

So next month I'll be commuting to KL 5 days a week. I imagine the traffic around TUDM and Jalan Istana would be horrendous and I'll probably have to leave for work at around 6:30 or something.

I finally got a real job and everything is right again with this universe.

Alhamdulillah.

7 December 2012

About a month ago my sister-in-law got married. We all took the 1000 kilometers round trip to Tanah Merah for the occasion. After the wedding we returned home but without Adam & Mia. They will be spending the school holidays with their grandparent. I hope they had fun. I really miss those two.

Starbucks didn't work out for me. 10 years ago that might have been a viable career choice. I was still young and energetic and eager to work. Today, I don't have the energy or passion to work my ass off 6 days a week for a nearly minimum wage. So I resigned. Just in time for my sister-in-law's wedding. Or did I resign because I didn't want my wife to go home all by herself? Perhaps.

Anyway Starbucks said since I didn't work the whole month, they're not gonna pay me shit. I always thought big American corporations are evil and now I learned it the hard way. Naturally I won't go down without a fight. Imma get my 2 weeks wages even if I have to knock on Vincent Tan's door.

In other news life still suck. I hope my new mega project will work out.

It rained the whole day. That's why my t-shirt got wet.