Marriage

My abang is getting married.

We’re going to penang this weekend for merisik.

Tunang early next year, 2011.

Nikah and sanding end of 2011.

This has given me a lot of pressure. A LOT.

I started questioning H about our future. And ended up arguing.

Friends are all getting married next year.

I think I’m gonna be anak dara tua. Sigh.

working life

when i studied advertising, i had never imagine how the industry will be like. it never occured to me that the field is crazy and hectic, mentally and physically tortured to the very extreme level that i cant even tell what's tiring and what not. there are a lot of mean people in this field. it's just insane.

i started in Dentsu as a rookie. i had no experience in advertising. no idea of the processes, procedures, channels and guidelines. i blame my lecturers because they shouldnt have taught us theories because there's only few bits of what we learned that can be used in the real working world - doing reports. the rest? i have to learn from A - Z again.

i joined Dentsu as an Account Executive with another new guy, a Senior Account Executive. and again for you stupid assholes, i dont do accounts as in financial thingy. i have to explain what my job is to every stupid person who asked me "so, u're in finance eh?". there's a difference between ACCOUNT and ACCOUNTS.

Account Executive

Job Description:

An advertising agency Account Executive (AE) is key to maintaining the relationship between the agency and the client. AEs are the liaison between the client and the creative team to ensure the client's needs and goals are being met on every project. The AE also manages pitches to the client, the client's ad budget and generally handles around four non-competing client accounts at a time.

when i joined the company, i was assigned to join the Telekom Malaysia aka TM team. doing telco account is not what i was hoping for. i was thinking of a more relax, chill and small account to work with because i'm new, and i need to learn. doing telco means a fast track account, i have to be very very fast, smart and it requires a lot of hardwork.

my manager didnt have the luxury of time to train or teach me. i had to start with their flow which was very very fast and i was confused all the time. i was thrown into few campaigns, handled by different sets of clients and creative teams. i was very confused. i was just learning the processes and procedures, i couldnt cope with the workloads. imagine if you are thrown into 4 big events... let say.. big concerts. and you join the events that already worked halfway... all of the sudden you have to handle it yourself. you have no idea what has been done, whats to be done, who should you see, who are these people, why are they chasing you, what and where you should go. you have NO TIME to make a research about how it all started. you just have to go with the flow. if jumping into 1 event that already done halfway makes you confuse, think about another 3 events going on at the same time. you become confuse and screw up all the time.

that's what i felt when i first join dentsu. i was like, i'm a freshie and you're asking me to do 4 advertising campaigns at the same time. i dont even know who the clients are, which creative teams working on it, the procedures and processes! i just have to keep up with their pace. i had to learn all by myself because my boss was too busy with his job. i had to travel back and forth, from meeting client to dealing with the creatives.

and of course everyone will go thru up and down of their work. i had a rough start. my creative team wasnt very pleased when i joined the team. they look at me as a fresh graduate, a stupid girl who doesnt know anything, who will screw up everything. they were surprised the management hired a freshie for a big account like TM. when i came to see them to brief on the creative, they would ignore me, they were very mean, they said harsh words to me just because i dont know how and that i'm learning. they wouldnt even want to teach me anything. i ignored their madness because i know that is just stupid of me to even argue with them. i became immune to the words "fuck off"at everytime i came to brief them on the creative needs.

once, i had to rush on an artwork... i went to see my creative right after my client briefed me on the changes and requirements. when i came to her desk, i told her that i needed a revision within that hour. i was holding my Job Req paper to brief her further on the details. but she ignored me, she didnt turn her face to look at me and she just gave me the eye glance of 2 seconds... and continued with her work. i stood there for nearly half an hour like an idiot. i told myself to be patience as long as i could. yes, i was standing there for as long as i can until i can get her time to brief her. eventually she finished whatever she was doing and with angry manner asked what i wanted. i briefed her everything which was only 5 mins, left the papers with her and walked away. it's not my problem if she doesnt want to do it. i just have to make sure i briefed her because if i dont, she will make that a point to the management. if i brief her and she doesnt do it, it's her trouble with the management instead.

the creatives can be very difficult to work with. and i dont mean only the designers... also the writers, production, studio, FA artists, art directors... everyone in the creative department. they always feel like account people (account people are also called "The Suit") dont give a shit about them and keep on adding the workload like they dont have anything else to do. i understand their angst toward the suits, because the creative work on various accounts at the same time. their workload is crazy. but we account people are the ones dealing with clients. they dont. so we are the ones that ensure everything should be in order, ensure the revenue and responsible of the relationships. we are the ones the client will chase and scolded at. clients dont care about the creatives workload. if they want it within an hour, die die you must give it not more than an hour, or you're fucked.

i have been scolded, shouted, criticized at by clients so many times. in front of the people, strangers, creative, bosses... you name it.

once, my client wasnt very happy with the colour of the published print ads in the newsprint... i had to go to The Star's printing plant at Bukit Jelutong almost every week for a month, at midnights just to monitor the printing. i had to make sure that the colour printed just like the artwork approved by client. the first week i was accompanied by my creative. the second week i was accompanied by my boss. but after that, nobody would want to go to the factory far far away in the middle of the night just to watch the printing. i had to go alone. all because i have be accounted for by my client and i wouldnt want to let them down.

i keep up with workloads and flow quite fast. i was able to work independently on my own after 3 months of hell. i was given confirmation letter during the 4th month of working there. my boss said he couldnt wait for 6 months of probation and seeing at how good i was at handling my job, he wouldnt want me to run away.

within 6 months there i see a lot of people come in and go in my team. my boss finally told me that this team never had anyone working longer than 6 months. all these people who left would gave the same reason, "TM is crazy. it's just too much and stressful". i'm glad i passed that 6 months and broke the record.

during that 6 months also i had a new boss came in as my senior account director. she's still with us til now. very strict lady. not married. i was scared of her when she joined our team. she wanted everything to be perfect, in order. then i had another 2 more people joining the team. from working just the 2 of us, me and my manager did all the campaigns on our own. he didnt even know what my campaigns were all about and i didnt know his. we were working on seperate campaigns but we managed everything from a-z. i started feeling like a manager already. the other people of my batch in other accounts dont even get the chance to do what i do now. they are still doing the freshies job. i have never been so proud of my success. within the 6 months also i finally got along with my creatives. they have been very nice to me after knowing long enough. i tried the best to work on both parties. i'm glad my creatives are easy to work with since then. we even gone out together with the rest of the team, chilling and hangout... it was better after the 6 months there.

there's a girl who just joined our team. she had 2 years experience in advertising. she handled big accounts such as proton and petronas in her previous agency. we were having a smoking break and started chit chatting during her 1st week at dentsu. she started telling me stuff that proton is like the hardest client ever. so sick to work with proton. saying that i will not be able to work on proton, and she started 'teaching' me stuff i already know. i just kept it to myself, and told her good luck doing TM. anything just ask me. but she thinks she's senior thus she doesnt need my help.

after 2 weeks, she started nagging about how suck TM is. how hard it is. how insane this account is. she didnt expect this. and she put down her ego and started asking for my help, a lot. i just smiled and helped her as much as i can. but for 2 years experience, i say you're a dumb blonde. dont be so confident if you dont know shit. think before you say something. it'll hunt you.

during my 8th month, my lady boss called me to an internal meeting. when i walked into the meeting room, i was surprised to find that she was waiting for me, only me. i was nervous, because the only meetings of 1 to 1 like this means - you screw up, you suck, bye bye.
but no. she called me for my evaluation. she started by asking how do i feel about the job. after my reply, she continued with the appraisal. talked about my performance... how she's surprised in her 10 years experience to find a freshie who worked professionally, perfect and very detailed. she said if she didnt know i am only few months old, she thought i am the manager. she gave me a lot of good reviews of me. saying that not only i am fast, i could multitask like crazy, have everything done on the spot, outsmarted every clients of my own ways, overcome issues and critical situtations without any superiors' help, i am organized, very detailed person and the list goes on. i was shocked and happy to hear everything she said. i couldnt help my tears from falling. she kept giving me compliments of my job. she even told me that she went to see the management and MD to push them to reward me with something - increment or bonus.. i dont know. i did not know how to react to that. i was just.... so happy. i'm sure this is not only from their observation to my performance. maybe clients have something to do with is. it's just shocking.

today is my 10 months of working in dentsu. feels like i have worked for 5 years man. i just removed my wisdom tooth yesterday, so i've been given 2 days MC. i was staying at home and my manager called me today. "Please come to office at 4pm. We are going to share the Agency Evaluation result with the rest of the team". shit. the result is out. every year, TM will do Agency Evaluation. there are 3 ATL agencies and 10 BTL agencies working under TM. dentsu is one of the atl agencies for tm. they will review our performance, and remarks of everything of the year. the evaluation was done at TM by the top levels - CMO, GM, etc. and only 2 people of each agency can attend. it's a closed-meeting and confidential. my manager and lady boss went to the evaluation representing dentsu.

i was nervous when my bosses presented the deck to us back in the office today. we were given marks on every single thing we do. account management and also creative management. i was nervous because my boss asked my to come when he knows of the mc. and normally in the evaluation, the will only mention names in there if the persons have really bad reviews. other than that, they normally wont mention any names. and i have the feeling my boss wants me there because of something. probably there was a review about me when i screwed up so many times before. i was afraid because this meeting is attended by everyone in the office.

so they presented us the deck. slide by slide. what area to be improved, what area that client is happy with. and then to the finale. the highlights, summary, remarks and key points to the agency. there it is, my name... mentioned in point number 1.

*the blurred is confidential information.

"Great servicing team - Lydia, Shahrin and Tim, very responsive....".

i couldnt be more proud. out of 9 account people in our team... we have 3 names from account mentioned and 2 names from the creative. MENTIONED IN THE EVALUATION DECK! this was presented by the TM's top bosses in front of other agencies. right after the presentation, my boss gave my a big tight hug for this. i dont know, maybe because tim and shahrin are my manager and director. i'm only an exec.

my dad was so proud of me. more than he can say. i'm so touched of my dad's words to me after telling him this. after all, i can only tell my dad because he knows better and friends dont give a shit about this. this is my achievement. friends wont understand. you will say, so what? everyone who works has their own achievements, their challenges differ based on their industries. fine. whatever. i'm just too proud. tomorrow there's a celebration for the 3 of us.

loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

work

The Star Printing Plant, Bukit Jelutong - 1 a.m.
went to print view to check on colour quality because of the poor ad published on their paper.
amazing place.

VADS photoshoot at an old building located at Bukit Mahkamah.
they even have signages using the old bahasa like, "di-larang".

visual test. checking on angles, details and lightings on the actual photo.

tengah tunggu transport.

New Love

i fell in love with La Bodega, BSC. i love going there, even if its not for la bodega. WIP and Pressroom are very nice places to chill too. but i like la bodega the most. nice outdoor chilling place, privacy and the people are nice too. me n h, when we're bored and wanted to chill just the two of us, we always head to la bodega. aaaah blissss (exaggerate).

Monday Talk

Monday Talk happens every Monday morning, whereby our company will select 1 rep among us to present something in front of everyone. the topics can be anything. some presented about bungee jumping, hari raya, Europe trip, top 10 most fearful events and some presented their hobbies or talents like playing traditional indian guitar, pole dancing, and such.

my colleague who presented the pole dancing thingy is actually a professional pole dancer. we didn't know that because she has this professional executive look in her (she's actually our company's Strategic Planner). so when she showed us her video, the competitions she had join, we were really amazed by that talent. seriously, who can pole dance that good? it takes a lot of practice and time.

this Monday will be my turn. got an email from the management last week and i have to cram my head to think of a topic. i dont have talents. im too lazy to play sports. i dont have any interesting hobbies to talk about. wow, im actually a boring person.

i had that pressure thinking of just 1 topic. then my colleagues and bosses gave me a suggestion to do slides on shoes. SHOES! yeah. that's what i'm doing. i was surprised when most of my colleagues actually noticed how much i'm into shoes and they actually saw me browsing shoes over the internet almost everyday whenever they pass by my place. when i came home and told h about this, he agreed with them and said, "yea i pun notice kalau i bukak pc i, mesti semua page tu u bukak pasal shoes". ha. if they didn't tell me this, i wouldn't have noticed it as well.

yes, i like googling shoes. i like to look at all the shoe blogs and websites. i was laughing my ass off when h told me that, when i'm upset, panic, stress, pressure or any having emotion at all, i will look up for shoes. and its very easy for him to calm me down. heh.

ok, here goes the slides that i've done for the monday talk. very simple, very basic. i have to cut down the slides here because i have too many slides for my presentation. i can't explain every detail here but at least i have some snapshots for u all to view. hehe.

a bit of history

Otzi the Iceman is claimed to be the oldest mummy in Europe. he was found frozen in the ice and his body was still intact - unlike teared up corpses normally found elsewhere.

amazing. when i made a research on the middle ages shoes, i understand that the more pointy the shoes are, the more 'powerful' the wearer feels like. it shows symbol and status back then. sometime it can go to some ridiculous extend. weird. tak susah ke kau nak berhimpit ramai2 sampai orang boleh pijak kasut kau and trip and humiliate yourself?

hundreds and hundreds of shoe types. but hey, some of them have so many names but actually the same style of shoes.

sample of the shoes. like i said, actually these shoes are the same style but have dozens of names.

i'm actually curious about the convertible heels. you can adjust the height, change the heel according to your needs. i can be flats, 2inc, 4inc, or however you want it.

gun heels as popularized by Madonna. Lobster Claw is ridiculous again, popularized by Gaga.
i like the stripper heels. one shouldn't wear shoe with more than 5 - 3/4 inches with thick sole. So if you're thinkin of buying platform heels, please ensure the height isn't as high as the stripper heels. platform is nice, but don't ever go too far on it.

i laughed out reading the definition by,

Urban Dictionary: stripper heels

Heels so high, possibility of death is thought of.

clogs. been wanting to buy that since it's the new trend. or has it passed? shit.
oxford shoes i loveee! i prefer flats than heels. very classic.
gladiator - off season.

shoes mostly worn by Malaysians.

of all the weird shoes designed by all the people in the world, i am kinda attracted to this one.
this pair of shoes is created by a London designer and artist INSA as a response to artist Chris Ofili's elephant dropping painting of the Virgin Mary.
Believe it or not, this unique piece of art is actually from $250 per pair!
i dont know who would want to wear heels full of shit. what will happen if it's raining heavily when you walk on that shoes? tahi bersepah2? smell sucks? euw.
but i still like the colours. very nice. however, have a look at the heels, how can you walk on the beads?

i totally agree with this. i have regretted so much on all the shoes yang my mom buang.
i'm sure i can do a shoe gallery... haih.

Money Spent on Nonsense

SELAMAT HARI RAYA!

my raya this year is boring. because i have to give out duit raya to all those hungry gold digging kids, that caused me the first world record of being broke in the first week after getting my paycheck! yes! hoorayhhh!

im starting to hate raya. penat, panas, eat all you can, die.

so 1 day me and h went to ou to buy some groceries and some food for friends who are coming to our house later that day. thennnn we came across 1 very the orange shop. h has been looking for an ashtray for our room quite a while already. he has to buy an ashtray, because he keeps on stealing all the ashtrays in our house that belongs to our housemates. to the point where our housemates had to use shot glasses because they'd 'wonder' where have all the ashtrays gone to. so to prevent h from stealing more ashtrays and keep it in our locked room, he has to get an ashtray.

back to the very the orange shop. this shop is cool. it sells those cute and cool things you can find in ROOM outlets, but with damn cheaper prices. instead of looking for ONE ashtray; we bought a big orange colour snooker ball like ashtray, we also bought the rest of these as well:

Coke Phone

A house phone in the form of a Coca-Cola can.
we do have a house phone in our room but we never use it (phone line meant for Streamyx).
so this is actually a deco.

h keeps on asking me to call the coke phone over and over again so that he can pick up the call and talk to me (while i'm in the living hall).
he.just.can't.stop.being.over.excited.
and his excitement was so loud i can actually hear him from the hall.
-___-

Lipstick PiggieBank

since we have extra coins in our pockets and bags everytime we come back, h said we needed a piggie bank.
i chose the pink lipstick because i'm such a bimbo.


Eye Mask

hahaha. i was looking at those stuff and saw this eye mask with hilarious words on it.
i took this one on the spot, right away.
cute way to tease h at nights.
oh and the eye mask helps me sleep better - h doesn't sleep at night, and the lights are all on because he needs it to play his computer games.

thank god we were in a tight budget, so we can only afford those stuff. i'm sure we'll spend more nonsense stuff buying everything in that shop when we have more money. hahahaha.

by the way

during the week of raya, h has been talking about Maybank's promotion on new LCD TVs. he was so keen into buying one for our room - which i protested and fought big time. we're only staying there for a while, buying a tv is so not necessary? but he won't listen. he asked me to go to this shop in kota damansara to JUST HAVE A LOOK AND SURVEY the tvs there because he claimed that he is really interested innit and wanted to just look at it.

so we went.

and we bought a tv.

that night.

that very night when we were only supposed to just.have.a.look.

haih.


that is my boyfriend. whenever he is interest in something. he will get it. no matter what i say. no one can stop him.

no the story doesn't stop there. nononono. because when he purchased the tv that night, he had plans already. after dropping me off at home, he went to work for midnight shift. came back early morning next day, when i was about to get up for work. he dropped by a min, changed his clothes and went out when i was in shower.

he went looking for a drill set. that early in the morning! then he went to ikea and bought 3 shelves for our room! 1 long shelve for the tv, and 2 small shelves for deco. he'd gone insane that day. he came back from shopping everywhere, came back to start drilling the walls when he found out that he bought the wrong drilling screw (or whatever you call it). that thing can't go thru our wall because it's not that strong. so h had to go back to kl and borrow a drill set from atta at UK Perdana. then back to our house in Damansara Perdana.

seriously when i found out about this on the phone, i told him right away, YOU'RE CRAZY! u can wait for another day! you haven't slept the whole night and now you're doing all this?

he didn't sleep the whole day. because after he finished drilling everything, the TV guy didn't arrive at the time as the shop promised. they were supposed to send it at 3pm but came at 7pm.

so basically h didn't sleep the whole night and day because he was expecting his tv. his beloved new tv.

i dont know if i should feel happy, sad, sorry, nor excited because all this is too insane for me to handle.

H setting up the new 37" Samsung LCD TV in our room.


***********************************************************************

me and the girls were invited to celebrate zetty's surprised birthday at Scrumptious the other day. ska can't make it so it was just me, ayu and azielah (plus adzwan bongkok yang gedik).

some stuff we bought for zetty for her birthday present. hehehehe. love it.

g-strings!!! the kinky-est we can find for her!
hahahahaha. hope she can fit them all, and most importantly, she WEARS it.

i'm a pervert?

i have a pack of condom and a water-based lubricant, CD, doll, cactus, fluffy furry stick, japanese cigarette, penis keychain, postcards... all on my workdesk. and those are gifts from my colleagues. well, anyone who passed by my desk would notice them. haih. what more to come? surprise me please.....

Moving Out and In

we finally moved in together. a friend of mine, nana, has a middle room to rent (not that we have a choice), so we took it. the room is small, seriously. the place is at damansara perdana. quite a nice interior for bachelor's house. official date moved in, 9 August 2010.

moving house is really tiring. spent a lot of nonsense, time and money. we had no time to do it together so we had to do it separately because sometimes h has to go work and i had a training for 3 days at nilai during that time.

finding the right furniture wasn't that easy. we argued about 3 hours in the furniture shop just to choose the right ones for our room. total expenses = RM1158

4 hours at ikea. bought about 8 items. total expenses = RM600

logistic = RM100

food supply = unbelievable

others = unknown. too scared to know how much we have spent for a ROOM!

nah, check out the photos:

our living hall. im quite happy with the owner's work on the lights.

the ugly room when we first came by to check it out.

when the furniture first came in.
me n h painted the walls for 3 nights!
it was supposed to be dark purple........ :(

christina aguilera's picture is still there til now.
no time to replace with our picture.

curtain's up, bedsheet and quilt all done.
i wanted pink, h wanted black. so we decided to buy pink and black for the bed sheet, pillow cases and quilt cover.

clothes unpacked. computer table assembled.

black carpet, black table, black wardrobe... black.
notice that our wardrobe doesnt have the doors? we purposely told the shop to remove it.

xtina is still there. h is trying to glue a hook of the height i could reach.


so there you go. a lot of stuff in a small room.
call me if you're around the neighbourhood ya.
:p

when i turned 24, i decided to celebrate with just the TWO of us

my day starts with sunshine

japanese our favourite

the steak that cost H rm300

Traders Hotel dinner was superb!

Tanjung Malim Pau - on our way to Cameron Highlands

Traffic was bad during school holidays

Our hotel! nice resort

steamboat dinner

check out time

very nice and romantic place, will come again someday..

Work Nonsense

vandalism

my workdesk that has no deco at all. im a messy person

the 2 girls of my age

the walls that separate The Suits and The Creatives

My boss at the creative's territory