ACP:: Annual Christmas Photoshoot

Good memories to keep.

Even though the Christmas decoration is lesser than last year, we still managed to find some of the celebratory spirit.

Christmas + Winter Solstice

Our big Christmas meal is on 22 Dec. But my favorite memories are of the process in getting the setting done. As the days grew closer, I am getting more and more excited. We enjoy every process of the shopping, the gift wrapping, the prize tagging, the stock take, the nicely decorated office area and the party set-up. I must admit that I am getting paranoid whenever it comes to big events. However, my worries is not unfounded as I had a bad fright from the delay in the food delivery during the seventh month festival and the chaotic lucky draw situation previously. In every effort we hope that all things would run smoothly. The excitement is built up with the readiness of the decorations. We have placed all the presents, lots of them underneath the steps beside the staircase and we have got the honey glazed ham sliced and placed nicely on the tray. Christmas music is on the radio.

A lot of effort has been put into the preparation of the event, the buying and the wrapping of the gift, the sourcing of the decoration, the moving of furniture. Precious is the gift behind the gift, the thoughts and effort that has been put into the making. I could not wait to see their expression when the gift is open.


My terrible graffiti on two of the meeting room doors, the layout of the party area, one part of the food table settling and the grand lucky draw prize (32" Aquos LCD TV) and some glorious food that everyone loves it.

I could strongly feel the Christmas celebratory spirit as my work during the whole season revolves around the it. We are shuffling along making plans for the company, our department and our personal friends.

The exciting part comes when everyone has been lead into thinking that all we have for Christmas are the food, deco and the prizes, but no one would have excepted that we would dress up in Santa costume to greet everyone. We secretly excuse ourselves from the lunch event and got changed into the santa and santarinas. The two santarinas will be escorting the santa to the main hall while each of them will be carrying a basket of sweets for distribution. It was said that the event we had this year is the best so far. We have lifted the expenditures and almost spend the whole amount available on our welfare funds for YR2010. It was definitely a wonderful Christmas memory for me.

Birthday 27

Thankful for the birthday joy given by the nice people around me. I am very grateful for all for birthday wishes and the sweet thoughts.


I was very determined to supersede my memories with the happier ones. Since my mother is at home, I asked her if she would like to go for Karaoke session together. I was well aware that I have to delicate a whole list of songs from a different genre but I should count each of such opportunities a blessing. I wanted many different memories of us, as many as possible. My mother got her friend to join us for the KTV and it becomes my duty to serve and select the right songs for them. Happiness is in the giving; probably treating them to an afternoon of singing fun is an extraordinary experience. I could get to learn some old songs at the same time.



While I was on my way to somerset for dinner, there are 3 girls from the train who keeps talking to me. I was half-listening and half-playing with my phone, but they were chatting and asking me questions about my life. It is polite that I think I should give a response to their questions, and they seem like the harmless normal girls just like the friends I know. One was asking if I am local, there are too many that have questioned about my nationality that it has somehow become a normal strange question. I get this a lot so much that has made me wonder what it the cause of their wrong perception. This is my first encounter of contact exchange from an mrt with 3 other people. I vividly remembered that I was once told about the Japanese culture of a polite gesture to exchange contact means a signal of not wanting to keep in contact. I am going to be doing the do the same, partly for being courteous and partly for blaming the social networking media that I have become lazier in making phone calls.



It has been years away since I last had my actually birthday dinner with friends. It's fun doing different things at different times.

Dinner @ Hoshigaoka

This restaurant has been brought over by the Jack’s Place Group and has been receiving good reviews since. I wanted very much to return to this place with my ‘old colleagues’ for a reminiscent of the days we work in this restaurant. Every object seems to be linked to a block of memories in the past. It is only meaningful to pause and relive the past memories once in a while.

Nini is playing with the new polorid camera from us. It seems odd that the people who celebrated birthday with me are all wearing in blue. It was just days after my visit to the geomancer I was told to stay away from the ‘water element’ or ‘color blue’ did I find myself surrounded all by it. I already have a lot of ‘water elements’ in my eight characters. Maybe this is the effect of likeness attracts. I still love my blue dresses.

Presents for Chirstmas

A sweet note to close the year comes with a realization that I have found a safe haven, where most people in the workplace are genuinely nice and shared a common goal in getting quality work done.

Life has never been more motivating and rewarding. In this Christmas, we are going to work like little elves that are helping our Santa Father to gather the presents and warp them nicely for collection.

It is indeed a daunting task to buy 170 gifts for everyone in the company. In view that there would be closed-door member sales on Wednesday, we went to the mall one day ahead to scout for suitable gifts. The selected items have to be practical and the designs of ladies bag selected should never repeat. We are acting like a bargain hunter with a fashion police attitude who checks and scrutinize every item to make sure our buying is worth every cent we paid. The budget is $30 per pax and we need to work around the price and discount to make the purchase as fair as possible. Due to some untold past experiences, getting gift vouchers is not an option. It is relieve to have some electronic items delivered to our office directly. As for the shopping gifts, we went to the mall on the sales date, leaving the office slightly earlier to pick up the items, which we have set our minds upon. It is a labor-intensive duty to carry all the shopping bags. During payment, we had become the cause of complaints and there are a lot of weird stares from the other shoppers who are stunned by our number of shopping bags.

It is very light heartening to have two other energetic colleagues around. Somehow, they have secretly become my source of strength. I may have once again over-exerted by lower back. In a deflecting laugh, I should be glad to be able to move and do big shopping. Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile experience.

Work has become so fun when it is filled with so many activities. I almost felt like I was a student once again. On the departmental level, we had done karaoke, Jack’s place dinner, pizza hut lunch, triple three hotel buffet, popiah wrapping, nasi lemak lunch and k-buffet. There are still some balance funds for another activity before 2011. On the company level, we had fruits day, seven-month festive, bowling, movie screening, appreciation dinner, Christmas and we have even started talking about Chinese new year. The sense of comrade was built through these activities and I think the birthday celebration and the bus journey have helped to foster closer ties too. So much have been done in less than six months time. Such entertainment volume is not common for our company, and it has been a really exciting year for me.

Ahoy! Dazzling new sea creatures

Riverboat @ Marina South Pier

The upper deck is rather quiet and empty, but we do see quite a number of shutterbugs coming throughout the evening.



Neptune king giving the opening speech (almost being mistook as Santa Claus/ Gandalf the white)

Getting ready for the games and presentation


Door gift for guest. If possible, I would like to do the same for the company I worked in too. Every staff is a secret Santa of the other and each of them would buy a gift for their 'baby'. It is more cost saving to get the departments to do presentation rather than engaging in an event company. I feel rather awkward as we did not dress according to the theme of Pirate-Peterpan-Creatures of the Seas.


Yummy food. Tortillas, tacos and chocolate truffles are one of my favorites.

2 glasses of red wines on a Riverboat is a good way to loosen up. Everything is following the flow of the wind.